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BOOKS  BY  FRANCIS  L\^DE 

Published  by  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days.  Illus. 

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THE  CITY  OF  NUMBERED  DAYS 


1V.578531 


"What  would  I  do?     A  number  of  things." 


[Page  91] 


The 
City  of  Numbered  Days 


BY 

FRANCIS     LYNDE 


ILLUSTRATED  BY 
ARTHUR    E.    BECHER 


CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
NEW  YORK  ::::::::::   1914 


Copyright,  1914,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  August,  1914 


TO    MY   WIFE 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER 

I.     The  Heptaderm ^ 

II.     J.  Wesley  Crcesus        I9 

III.  Sands  of  Pactolus 48 

IV.  A  Fire  of  Little  Sticks      ....  66 
V.     Symptomatic 79 

VI.     MiRAPOLIS i°4 

VII.    The  Speedway ii9 

VIII.    Table  Stakes 13° 

IX.     Bedlam HS 

X.     Epochal ^5^ 

XI.    The  Feast  of  Hurrahs 178 

XII.    Quicksands ^9^ 

XIII.  Flood  Tide 208 

XIV.  The  Abyss 232 

XV.    The  Setting  of  the  Ebb      ....  244 
vii 


Contents 


CHAPTER 


PAGE 


XVI.  The  Man  on  the  Bank. 263 

XVII.  The  Circean  Cup 273 

XVIII.  Love's  Crucible 284 

XIX.  The  Sunset  Gun 301 

XX.  The  Terror 322 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

"What  would  I  do?     A  number  of  things"     .      Frontispiece 

FACING   PAGE 

Brouillard  had  to  look  twice  before  he  could  attempt 
to  classify  her,  and  even  then  she  baffled  him  ...       46 

"It's  all  gone,  little  girl;  it's  all  gone!" 242 

Brouillard  got  between 342 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 


I 


I 

The  Heptaderm 

T  was  not  characteristic  of  Brouillard — the 
Brouillard  Grislow  knew  best — that  he  should 
suffer  the  purely  technical  talk  of  dams  and  res- 
ervoirs, bed-rock  anchorages,  and  the  latest  word 
in  concrete  structural  processes  to  languish  and 
should  drift  into  personal  reminiscences  over  their 
first  evening  camp-fire  in  the  Niquoia. 

Because  the  personalities  were  gratefully  vary- 
ing the  monotonies,  and  also  because  he  had  a  jo- 
cose respect  for  the  unusual,  Grislow  was  careful 
not  to  discourage  the  drift.  There  had  been  a 
benumbing  surfeit  of  the  technical  talk  dating 
from  the  day  and  hour  when  the  orders  had  come 
from  Washington  giving  Brouillard  his  step  up 
and  directing  him  to  advance  with  his  squad  of 
Reclamation-Service  pioneers  upon  the  new  work 
in  the  western  Timanyonis.  But,  apart  from 
this,  the  reminiscences  had  an  experimental  value. 
Grislow's  one  unamiable  leaning  manifested  itself 

I 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

in  a  zest  for  cleverly  turning  the  hidden  facets  of 
the  human  polygon  up  to  the  light;  and  if  the 
facets  chose  to  turn  themselves  of  their  own  ac- 
cord, as  in  Brouillard's  case,  why,  so  much  the 
better. 

"As  you  were  saying?"  he  prompted,  stretching 
himself  luxuriously  upon  the  fragrant  banking  of 
freshly  clipped  spruce  tips,  with  his  feet  to  the 
blaze  and  his  hands  locked  under  his  head.  He 
felt  that  Brouillard  was  merely  responding  to  the 
subtle  influences  of  time,  place,  and  encompass- 
ments  and  took  no  shame  for  being  an  analytical 
rather  than  a  S3^mpathetic  listener.  The  hundred- 
odd  men  of  the  pioneer  party,  relaxing  after  the 
day-long  march  over  the  mountains,  were  smoking, 
yarning,  or  playing  cards  around  the  dozen  or 
more  camp-fires.  The  evening,  with  a  half-grown 
moon  silvering  the  inverted  bowl  of  a  firmament 
which  seemed  to  shut  down,  lid-like,  upon  the 
mountain  rim  of  the  high-walled  valley,  was  witch- 
ingly  enchanting;  and,  to  add  the  final  touch,  there 
was  comradely  isolation,  Anson,  Griffith,  and  Lesh- 
ington,  the  three  other  members  of  the  engineering 
staff,  having  gone  to  burn  candles  in  the  head- 
quarters tent  over  blue-prints  and  field-notes. 

"I  was  saying  that  the  present-day  world  slant 
is  sanely  skeptical — as  it  should  be,"  Brouillard 

2 


The  Heptaderm 

went  on  at  the  end  of  the  thoughtful  pause. 
"Being  modern  and  reasonably  sophisticated,  we 
can  smile  at  the  signs  and  omens  of  the  ages  that 
had  to  get  along  without  laboratories  and  testing 
plants.  Just  the  same,  every  man  has  his  little 
atavistic  streak,  if  you  can  hit  upon  it.  For  ex- 
ample, you  may  throw  flip-flaps  and  call  it  rank 
superstition  if  you  like,  but  I  have  never  been 
able  to  get  rid  of  the  notion  that  birthdays  are 
like  the  equinoxes — turning-points  in  the  small, 
self-centred  system  which  we  call  life." 

"Poodle-dogs!"  snorted  the  one  whose  attitude 
was  both  jocose  and  analytical,  stuffing  more  of 
the  spruce  branches  under  his  head  to  keep  the 
pipe  ashes  from  falling  into  his  eyes. 

"I  know;  being  my  peculiar  weakness  instead 
of  your  own,  it's  tommy-rot  to  you,"  Brouillard 
rejoined  good-naturedly.  "As  I  said  a  few  min- 
utes ago,  I  am  only  burbling  to  hear  the  sound  of 
my  own  voice.  But  the  bottoming  fact  remains. 
You  give  a  screw  twist  to  a  child's  mind,  and  if 
the  mind  of  the  man  doesn't  exhibit  the  same 
helical  curve " 

"Suppose  you  climb  down  out  of  the  high- 
browed  altitudes  and  give  it  a  plain,  every-day 
name?"  grumbled  the  staff"  authority  on  water- 
sheds. 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"It's  casting  pearls  before  swine,  but  you're 
a  pretty  good  sort  of  swine,  Grizzy.  If  you'll 
promise  to  keep  your  feet  out  of  the  trough,  I'll 
tell  )'ou.  Away  back  in  the  porringer  period,  in 
W'hich  we  are  all  like  the  pin-feathered  dicky- 
birds, open-mouthed  for  anything  anybody  may 
drop  into  us,  some  one  fed  me  with  the  number 
seven." 

"Succulent  morsel!"  chuckled  Grislow.  "Did 
it  agree  with  you?" 

Brouillard  sat  back  from  the  fire  and  clasped 
his  hands  over  his  bent  knees.  He  was  of  a  type 
rare  enough  to  be  noteworthy  in  a  race  which  has 
drawn  so  heavily  upon  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  Teu- 
tonic stocks  for  its  build  and  coloring:  a  well-knit 
figure  of  a  man,  rather  under  than  over  the  normal 
stature,  but  bulging  athletically  in  the  loose-fitting 
khaki  of  the  engineer;  dark  of  skin,  even  where 
the  sun  had  not  burned  its  rich  mahogany  into  the 
olive,  and  owning  a  face  which,  with  the  upcurled 
mustaches,  the  brooding  black  eyes,  and  the  pure 
Gallic  outline  of  brow  and  jaw,  might  have  served 
as  a  model  for  a  Vierge  study  of  a  fighting  franc- 
tireur. 

"I  don't  remember  how  early  in  the  game  the 
thing  began,"  he  resumed,  ignoring  Grislow's  jok- 
ing interruption,  "but  away  back  in  the  dimmest 

4 


The  Heptaderm 

dawnings  the  number  seven  began  to  have  a  curi- 
ous significance  for  me.  From  my  earliest  recol- 
lections things  have  been  constantly  associating 
themselves  with  seven  or  some  multiple  of  it. 
You  don't  believe  it,  of  course;   but  it  is  true." 

"Which  means  that  you  have  been  sitting  up 
and  taking  notice  when  the  coincidences  hit,  and 
have  forgotten  the  millions  of  times  when  they 
didn't,"  scoffed  the  listener. 

"Probably,"  was  the  ready  admission.  "We 
all  do  that.  But  there  is  one  set  of  'coincidences,' 
as  you  call  them,  that  can't  be  so  easily  turned 
down.  Back  in  the  pin-feather  time  that  I  men- 
tioned somebody  handed  me  a  fact — the  discovery 
of  the  physiologists  about  the  waste  and  replace- 
ment that  goes  on  in  the  human  organism,  bring- 
ing around  a  complete  cellular  change  about  once 
in  every  seven  years.     Are  you  asleep?" 

"Not  yet;  go  on,"  said  the  hydrographer. 

"It  was  a  long  time  ago,  and  I  was  only  a  little 
tad;  but  I  surrounded  the  idea  and  took  it  in 
literally,  in  the  sense  of  a  sudden  and  sort  of 
magical  change  coming  at  the  end  of  each  seven- 
year  period  and  bound  to  occur  at  those  particular 
fixed  times.  The  notion  stuck  to  me  like  a  cockle- 
bur,  and  sometimes  I  wonder  if  it  isn't  still  stick- 
ing." 

5 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"Bugsl"  ranted  Grislow,  in  good-natured  ridi- 
cule, and  Brouillard  laughed. 

"That  is  what  I  say  to  myself,  Murray,  every 
time  the  fatal  period  rolls  around.     And  yet " 

"There  isn't  any  'and  yet,'"  cut  in  the  scoffer 
derisively.  "This  is  merely  your  night  for  being 
batty.     'Fatal  period' — suffering  humanity!" 

"No,  hold  on:  let  me  tell  you,  Murray — I'd 
Hke  to  get  it  out  of  my  system  if  I  can.  Up  to 
my  seventh  birthday  I  was  a  sickly  child,  puny 
and  only  about  half  alive.  I  recollect,  as  if  it 
were  only  yesterday,  how  the  neighbor  women 
used  to  come  in  and  condole  with  my  mother,  ig- 
noring me,  of  course,  as  if  I  hadn't  any  ears.  I 
can  remember  old  Aunt  Hetty  Parsons  saying, 
time  and  again:  'No,  Mis'  Brouillard;  you'll  never 
raise  that  boy  the  longest  day  you  live!'" 

"I'm  waiting  for  the  'and  yet,'"  put  in  Grislow, 
sitting  up  to  relight  his  pipe  with  a  blazing  splinter 
from  the  fire. 

"It  came — the  change,  I  mean — when  I  was 
seven  years  old.  That  was  the  year  of  our  re- 
moval to  Vincennes  from  the  country  village  where 
I  was  born.  Since  that  time  I  haven't  known 
what  it  means  to  be  sick  or  even  ailing." 

"Bully  old  change!"  applauded  Grislow.  "Is 
that  all?" 

6 


The  Heptaderm 

**No.  What  the  second  period  spent  on  my 
body  it  took  out  of  my  mind.  I  grew  stouter  and 
stronger  every  year  and  became  more  and  more 
the  stupidest  blockhead  that  ever  thumbed  a 
school-book.  I  simply  couldn't  learn,  Murray. 
My  mother  made  excuses  for  me,  as  mothers  will, 
but  my  father  was  in  despair.  He  was  an  edu- 
cated man,  and  I  can  imagine  that  my  uncon- 
querable doltishness  went  near  to  breaking  his 
heart." 

"You  are  safely  over  that  stage  of  it  now,  at 
all  events,"  said  the  hydrographer  in  exaggerated 
sarcasm.  "Any  man  who  can  stare  into  the  fire 
and  think  out  fetching  little  imaginations  like 
these  you  are  handing  me " 

"Sometimes  I  wish  they  were  only  imaginings, 
Grizzy.  But  let  me  finish.  I  was  fourteen  to  a 
day  when  I  squeezed  through  the  final  grammar 
grade;  think  of  it — fourteen  years  old  and  still 
with  the  women  teachers!  I  found  out  afterward 
that  I  got  my  dubiously  given  passport  to  the 
high  school  chiefly  because  my  father  was  one  of 
the  best-known  and  best-loved  men  in  the  old 
home  town.  Perhaps  it  wasn't  the  magic  seven 
that  built  me  all  over  new  that  summer;  perhaps 
it  was  only  the  change  in  schools  and  teachers. 
But  from  that  year  on,  all  the  hard  things  were 

7 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

too  eas}^.  It  was  as  if  somebody  or  something  had 
suddenly  opened  a  closed  door  in  my  brain  and 
let  the  daylight  into  all  the  dark  corners  at  once." 

Grislow  sat  up  and  finished  for  him. 

"Yes;  and  since  that  time  you  have  staved 
your  way  through  the  university,  and  butted  into 
the  Reclamation  Service,  and  played  skittles  with 
every  other  man's  chances  of  promotion  until  you 
have  come  out  at  the  top  of  the  heap  in  the  Con- 
struction Division,  all  of  which  you're  much  too 
modest  to  brag  about.  But,  say;  we've  skipped 
one  of  the  seven-year  flag-stations.  What  hap- 
pened when  you  were  twenty-one — or  were  you 
too  busy  just  then  chasing  the  elusive  engineering 
degree  to  take  notice?" 

Brouillard  was  staring  out  over  the  loom  of  the 
dozen  camp-fires — out  and  across  the  valley  at  the 
massive  bulk  of  Mount  Chigringo  rising  like  a  huge 
barrier  dark  to  the  sky-line  save  for  a  single  pin- 
prick of  yellow  light  fixing  the  position  of  a  soli- 
tary miner's  cabin  half-way  between  the  valley 
level  and  the  summit.  When  he  spoke  again  the 
hydrographer  had  been  given  time  to  shave  an- 
other pipe  charge  of  tobacco  from  his  pocket  plug 
and  to  fill  and  light  the  brier. 

"When  I  was  twenty-one  my  father  died,  and" — ■ 
he  stopped  short  and  then  went  on  in  a  tone  which 

8 


The  Heptaderm 

was  more  than  half  apologetic — "  I  don't  mind  tell- 
ing you,  Grislow;  you're  not  the  kind  to  pass  it 
on  where  it  would  hurt.  At  twenty-one  I  was  left 
with  a  back  load  that  I  am  carrying  to  this  good 
day;  that  I  shall  probably  go  on  carrying  through 
life." 

Grislow  walked  around  the  fire,  kicked  two  or 
three  of  the  charred  log  ends  into  the  blaze,  and 
growled  when  the  resulting  smoke  rose  up  to 
choke  and  blind  him, 

"Forget  it,  Victor,"  he  said  in  blunt  retraction. 
"I  thought  it  was  merely  a  little  splashing  match 
and  I  didn't  mean  to  back  you  out  into  deep 
water.  I  know  something  about  the  load  busi- 
ness myself;  I'm  trying  to  put  a  couple  of  kid 
brothers  through  college,  right  now." 

"Are  you?"  said  Brouillard  half-absently;  and 
then,  as  one  who  would  not  be  selfishly  indiffer- 
ent: "That  is  fine.  I  wish  I  were  going  to  have 
something  as  substantial  as  that  to  show  for  my 
wood  sawing." 

"Won't  you?" 

"Not  in  a  thousand  years,  Murray." 

"In  less  than  a  hundredth  part  of  that  time 
you'll  be  at  the  top  of  the  Reclamation-Service 
pay-roll — won't  that  help  out?" 

"No;  not  appreciably." 

9 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

Grlslow  gave  it  up  at  that  and  went  back  to  the 
original  contention. 

"We're    dodging   the    main    issue,"    he    said. 
"What   is  the  active  principle  of  your  'sevens' 
— or  haven't  you  figured  it  out?" 

"Change,"  was  the  prompt  rejoinder;  "always 
something  different — radically  different." 

"And  what  started  you  off  into  the  memory 
woods,  particularly,  to-night?" 

"A  small  recurrence  of  the  coincidences.  It 
began  with  that  hopelessly  unreliable  little  clock 
that  Anson  persists  in  carrying  around  with  him 
wherever  he  goes.  While  you  were  up  on  the  hill 
cutting  your  spruce  tips  Anson  pulled  out  and 
said  he  was  going  to  unpack  his  camp  kit.  He 
went  over  to  his  tent  and  lighted  up,  and  a  few 
minutes  afterward  I  heard  the  clock  strike — seven. 
I  looked  at  my  watch  and  saw  that  it  lacked  a 
few  minutes  of  eight,  and  the  inference  was  that 
Anson  had  set  the  clock  wrong,  as  he  commonly 
does.  Just  as  I  was  comfortably  forgetting  the 
significant  reminder  the  clock  went  off  again, 
striking  slowly,  as  if  the  mechanism  were  nearly 
run  down." 

"Another  seven?"  queried  Grislow,  growing  in- 
terested in  spite  of  a  keen  desire  to  lapse  into  ridi- 
cule again. 

lO 


The  Heptaderm 

"No;  it  struck  four.  I  didn't  imagine  it,  Mur- 
ray; I  counted:  one — two — three — four." 

"Well?"  was  the  bantering  comment.  "You 
couldn't  conjure  an  omen  out  of  that,  could  you? 
You  say  there  was  a  light  in  the  tent — I  suppose 
Anson  was  there  tinkering  with  his  little  tin  god 
of  a  timepiece.     It's  a  habit  of  his." 

"That  was  the  natural  inference;  but  I  was  cu- 
rious enough  to  go  and  look.  When  I  lifted  the 
flap  the  tent  was  empty.  The  clock  was  ticking 
away  on  Anson's  soap-box  dressing-case,  with  a 
lighted  candle  beside  it,  and  for  a  crazy  half  sec- 
ond I  had  a  shock,  Murray — the  minute-hand  was 
pointing  to  four  and  the  hour-hand  to  seven!" 

"Still  I  don't  see  the  miraculous  significance," 
said  the  hydrographer. 

"Don't  you?  It  was  only  another  of  the  co- 
incidences, of  course.  While  I  stood  staring  at 
the  clock  Anson  came  in  with  Griffith's  tool  kit. 
*rve  got  to  tinker  her  again,'  he  said.  'She's  got 
so  she  keeps  Pacific  time  with  one  hand  and 
Eastern  with  the  other.'  Then  I  understood  that 
he  had  been  tinkering  it  and  had  merely  gone 
over  to  Griffith's  tent  for  the  tools." 

"Well,"  said  Grislow  again,  "what  of  it?  The 
clock  struck  seven,  you  say;  but  it  also  struck 
four." 

II 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

Brouillard's  smile  tilted  his  curling  mustaches 
to  the  sardonic  angle. 

"The  combination  was  what  called  the  turn, 
Grizzy.  To-day  happens  to  be  my  twenty- 
eighth  birthday — the  end  of  the  fourth  cycle  of 
seven." 

"By  George!"  ejaculated  the  hydrographer  in 
mock  perturbation,  sitting  up  so  suddenly  that  he 
dropped  his  pipe  into  the  ashes  of  the  fire.  "In 
that  case,  according  to  what  seems  to  be  the  well- 
established  custom,  something  is  due  to  fall  in 
right  now!" 

"I  have  been  looking  for  it  all  day,"  returned 
Brouillard  calmly,  "which  is  considerably  more 
ridiculous  than  anything  else  I  have  owned  to, 
you  will  say.  Let  it  go  at  that.  We'll  talk  about 
something  real  if  you'd  rather — that  auxiliary 
reservoir  supply  from  the  Apache  Basin,  for  ex- 
ample. Were  the  field-notes  in  when  you  left 
Washington?"  And  from  the  abrupt  break,  the 
technicalities  came  to  their  own  again;  were  still 
holding  the  centre  of  the  stage  after  the  groups 
around  the  mess  fires  had  melted  away  into  the 
bunk  shelters  and  tents,  and  the  fires  themselves 
had  died  down  into  chastened  pools  of  incandes- 
cence edged  each  with  its  beach  line  of  silvered 
ashes. 

12 


The  Heptaderm 

It  was  Murray  Grislow  who  finally  rang  the 
curtain  call  on  the  prolonged  shop-talk. 

"Say,  man!  do  you  know  that  It  is  after  ten 
o'clock?"  he  demanded,  holding  the  face  of  his 
watch  down  to  the  glow  of  the  dying  embers. 
"You  may  sit  here  all  night,  if  you  like,  but  it's 
me  for  the  blankets  and  a  few  lines  of  'tired  Na- 
ture's sweet  restorer,  balmy' —  Now,  what  in  the 
name  of  a  guilty  conscience  is  that?" 

As  it  chanced,  they  were  both  facing  toward  the 
lower  end  of  the  valley  when  the  quotation-break- 
ing apparition  flashed  into  view.  In  the  deepest 
of  the  shadows  at  the  mouth  of  the  gorge,  where 
the  torrenting  Niquoia  straightened  itself  mo- 
mentarily before  entering  upon  its  plunging  race 
through  the  mountain  barrier,  a  beam  of  white 
light  flickered  unsteadily  for  a  fraction  of  a  sec- 
ond. Then  it  became  a  luminous  pencil  to  trace 
a  zigzag  line  up  the  winding  course  of  the  river, 
across  to  the  foot-hill  spur  where  the  camp  of 
the  Reclamation-Service  vanguard  was  pitched, 
and  so  on  around  to  the  base  of  Chigringo. 
For  certain  other  seconds  it  remained  quies- 
cent, glowing  balefully  like  the  eye  of  some  fabled 
monster  searching  for  its  prey.     Then  it  was  gone. 

Grislow's  comment  took  the  form  of  a  half- 
startled  exclamation. 

13 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"By  Jove!  wouldn't  that  give  you  a  fit  of 
the  creepies  ? — this  far  from  civiHzation  and  a  dy- 
namor 

*'It  wasn't  an  electric,"  returned  Brouillard 
thoughtfully,  apparently  taking  Grislow's  sugges- 
tion literally.     "It  was  an  acetylene." 

"Supposing  it  was — ^what's  the  difference? 
Aren't  we  just  as  far  from  a  carbide  shop  as  we 
are  from  the  dynamo?     What  are  you  calling  it?" 

"Your  guess  is  as  good  as  mine,"  was  the  half- 
absent  reply.  Brouillard  was  still  staring  fixedly 
at  the  distant  gulf  of  blackness  where  the  myste- 
rious light  had  appeared  and  disappeared. 

"Then  I'll  make  it  and  go  to  bed,"  said  the 
hydrographer,  rising  and  stretching  his  arms  over 
his  head.  "If  it  had  come  a  couple  of  hours  ago 
we  should  have  called  it  the  *  spot-light,'  turned 
on  to  mark  the  end  of  your  fourth  act  and  the 
beginning,  auspicious  or  otherwise,  of  the  fifth. 
Maybe  it  is,  anyway;  maybe  the  property-man 
was  asleep  or  drunk  and  forgot  to  turn  it  on  at 
the  spectacular  instant.     How  will  that  do?" 

Brouillard  had  got  upon  his  feet  and  was  but- 
toning his  many-pocketed  shooting-coat. 

"It  will  do  to  put  you  into  the  Balaam  saddle- 
beast  class,  Grizzy,"  he  said,  almost  morosely. 
Then  he  added:   "I'm  going  to  take  a  little  hike 


The  Heptaderm 

down  yonder  for  investigative  purposes.  Want 
to  come  along?" 

But  the  mapper  of  watersheds  was  yawning 
sleepily.  "Not  on  your  tintype,"  he  refused. 
"I'm  going  to  *cork  it  orf  in  me  'ammick.'  Wake 
me  up  when  you  come  back  and  tell  me  what  the 
fifth  act  is  going  to  do  to  you.  The  more  I  think 
of  it  the  more  I'm  convinced  that  it  was  the  spot- 
light, a  little  overdue,  after  all."  And  he  turned 
away  chuckling. 

It  was  only  a  short  mile  from  the  camp  on  the 
inward  slopes  of  the  eastern  foot-hills  to  the  mouth 
of  the  outlet  gorge,  across  which  Brouillard  could 
already  see,  in  mental  prevision,  the  great  gray  wall 
of  the  projected  Nlquoia  dam — his  future  work — 
curving  majestically  from  the  broken  shoulder  of 
Chigringo  to  the  opposing  steeps  of  Jack's  Moun- 
tain. The  half-grown  moon,  tilting  now  toward 
the  sky-line  of  the  western  barrier,  was  leaving  the 
canyon  portal  in  deepest  gloom.  As  Brouillard 
swung  along  he  kept  a  watchful  eye  upon  the  gorge 
shadows,  half  expecting  a  return  of  the  mysterious 
apparition.  But  when  he  finally  reached  the  can- 
yon portal  and  began  to  seek  for  the  trail  which 
roughly  paralleled  the  left  bank  of  the  stream  the 
mystery  was  still  unexplained. 

From  its  upper  portal  in  the  valley's  throat  to 

IS 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

the  point  where  the  river  debouches  among  the 
low  sand-hills  of  the  Buckskin  Desert  the  canyon 
of  the  Niquoia  measures  little  more  than  a  mile 
as  the  bird  flies,  though  its  crookings  through  the 
barrier  mountains  fairly  double  the  distance.  Be- 
ginning as  a  broken  ravine  at  the  valley  outlet, 
the  gorge  narrows  in  its  lower  third  to  a  clifF- 
walled  raceway  for  the  torrent,  and  the  trail, 
leaving  the  bank  of  the  stream,  climbs  the  for- 
ested slope  of  a  boundary  spur  to  descend  abruptly 
to  the  water's  edge  again  at  the  desert  gateway, 
where  the  Niquoia,  leaping  joyously  from  the  last 
of  its  many  hamperings,  becomes  a  placid  river  of 
the  plain. 

Picking  his  way  judiciously  because  the  trail 
was  new  to  him,  Brouillard  came  in  due  time  to 
the  descending  path  among  the  spruces  and  scrub- 
pines  leading  to  the  western  outlook  upon  the  des- 
ert swales  and  sand-hills.  At  the  canyon  portal, 
where  the  forest  thinned  away  and  left  him  stand- 
ing at  the  head  of  the  final  descending  plunge  in 
the  trail,  he  found  himself  looking  down  upon  the 
explanation  of  the  curious  apparition. 

None  the  less,  what  he  saw  was  in  itself  rather 
inexplicable.  In  the  first  desert  looping  of  the 
river  a  camp-fire  of  pinon  knots  was  blazing  cheer- 
fully, and  beside  it,  with  a  picnic  hamper  for  a 

i6 


The  Heptaderm 

table,  sat  a  supper  party  of  three — two  men  and  a 
woman — in  enveloping  dust-coats,  and  a  third  man 
in  chauffeur  leather  serving  the  sitters.  Back  of 
the  group,  and  with  its  detachable  search-Hght 
missing,  stood  a  huge  touring-car  to  account  for 
the  picnic  hamper,  the  dust-coats,  the  man  in 
leather,  and,  doubtless,  for  the  apparitional  eye 
which  had  appeared  and  disappeared  at  the  mouth 
of  the  upper  gorge.  Also  it  accounted,  in  a 
purely  physical  sense,  for  the  presence  of  the  pic- 
nickers, though  the  whim  which  had  led  them  to 
cross  the  desolate  Buckskin  Desert  for  the  du- 
bious pleasure  of  making  an  all-night  bivouac  on 
its  eastern  edge  was  not  so  readily  apparent. 

Being  himself  a  Bedouin  of  the  desert,  Brouil- 
lard's  first  impulse  was  hospitable.  But  when  he 
remarked  the  ample  proportions  of  the  great  tour- 
ing-car and  remembered  the  newness  and  rawness 
of  his  temporary  camp  he  quickly  decided  that 
the  young  woman  member  of  the  party  would 
probably  fare  better  where  she  was. 

This  being  the  case,  the  young  engineer  saw  no 
reason  why  he  should  intrude  upon  the  group  at 
the  cheerful  camp-fire.  On  the  contrary,  he  began 
speedily  to  find  good  and  sufficient  reasons  why 
he  should  not.  That  the  real  restraining  motive 
was  a  sudden  attack  of  desert  shyness  he  would 

17 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

not  have  admitted.  But  the  fact  remained. 
Good  red  blood  with  its  quickenings  of  courage 
and  self-reliance,  and  a  manful  ability  to  do  and 
dare,  are  the  desert's  gifts;  but  the  penalty  the 
desert  exacts  in  return  for  them  is  evenly  propor- 
tioned. Four  years  in  the  Reclamation  Service 
had  made  the  good-looking  young  chief  of  con- 
struction a  man-queller  of  quality.  But  each  year 
of  isolation  had  done  something  toward  weakening 
the  social  ties. 

A  loosened  pebble  turned  the  scale.  When  a 
bit  of  the  coarse-grained  sandstone  of  the  trail 
rolled  under  Brouillard's  foot  and  went  clattering 
down  to  plunge  into  the  stream  the  man  in  chauf- 
feur leather  reached  for  the  search-Hght  lantern 
and  directed  its  beam  upon  the  canyon  portal. 
But  by  that  time  Brouillard  had  sought  the  shelter 
of  the  scrub-pines  and  was  retracing  his  steps  up 
the  shoulder  of  the  mountain. 


i8 


II 

J.  Wesley  Croesus 

MEASURED  even  by  the  rather  exacting 
standards  of  the  mining  and  cattle  country, 
Brouillard  was  not  what  the  West  calls  "jumpy." 
Four  years  of  field-work,  government  or  other, 
count  for  something;  and  the  man  who  has  proved 
powder-shy  in  any  stage  of  his  grapple  with  the 
Land  of  Short  Notice  is  customarily  a  dead  man. 

In  spite  of  his  training,  however,  the  young 
chief  of  construction,  making  an  early  morning 
exploration  of  the  site  for  the  new  dam  at  the 
mouth  of  the  outlet  gorge  while  the  rank  and  file 
of  the  pioneer  force  were  building  the  permanent 
camp  half-way  between  the  foot-hills  and  the  river, 
winced  handsomely  when  the  shock  of  a  distance- 
muffled  explosion  trembled  upon  the  crisp  morn- 
ing air,  coming,  as  it  seemed,  from  some  point 
near  the  lower  end  of  the  canyon. 

The  dull  rumble  of  the  explosion  and  the  little 
start  for  which  it  was  accountable  were  disconcert- 
ing in  more  ways  than  one.  As  an  industry  cap- 
tain busy  with  the  preliminaries  of  what  promised 

19 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

to  be  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  modern  salvages 
of  the  waste  places,  Brouillard  had  been  assuring 
himself  that  his  work  was  large  enough  to  fill  all 
his  horizons.  But  the  detonating  crash  reminded 
him  forcibly  that  the  presence  of  the  touring  party- 
was  asserting  itself  as  a  disturbing  element  and 
that  the  incident  of  its  discovery  the  night  before 
had  been  dividing  time  pretty  equally  with  his 
verification  of  the  locating  engineer's  blue-print 
mappings  and  field-notes. 

This  was  the  first  thought,  and  it  was  pointedly 
irritating.  But  the  rebound  flung  him  quickly 
over  into  the  field  of  the  common  humanities. 
The  explosion  was  too  heavy  to  figure  as  a  gun- 
shot; and,  besides,  it  was  the  closed  season  for 
game.  Therefore,  it  must  have  been  an  accident 
of  some  sort — possibly  the  blowing  up  of  the  au- 
tomobile. Brouillard  had  once  seen  the  gasolene 
tank  of  a  motor-car  take  fire  and  go  up  like  a 
pyrotechnic  set  piece  in  a  sham  battle. 

Between  this  and  a  hurried  weighting  of  the 
sheaf  of  blue-prints  with  his  field-glass  prepara- 
tory to  a  first-aid  dash  down  the  outlet  gorge, 
there  was  no  appreciable  interval.  But  the  hu- 
mane impulse  doubled  back  upon  itself  tumultu- 
ously  when  he  came  to  his  outlook  halting  place 
of  the  night  before. 

20 


J.  Wesley  Croesus 

There  had  been  no  accident.  The  big  touring- 
car,  yellow  with  the  dust  of  the  Buckskin,  stood 
intact  on  the  sand  flat  where  it  had  been  backed 
and  turned  and  headed  toward  the  desert.  Wad- 
ing in  the  shallows  of  the  river  with  a  linen  dust 
robe  for  a  seine,  the  two  younger  men  of  the  party 
were  gathering  the  choicest  of  the  dead  mountain 
trout  with  which  the  eddy  was  thickly  dotted. 
Coming  toward  him  on  the  upward  trail  and 
climbing  laboriously  to  gain  the  easier  path  among 
the  pines,  were  the  two  remaining  members  of  the 
party — an  elderly,  pudgy,  stockily  built  man  with 
a  gray  face,  stiff  gray  mustaches  and  sandy-gray 
eyes  to  match,  and  the  young  woman,  booted, 
gauntleted,  veiled,  and  bulked  into  shapelessness 
by  her  touring  coat,  and  yet  triumphing  exuber- 
antly over  all  of  these  handicaps  in  an  ebullient 
excess  of  captivating  beauty  and  attractiveness. 

Being  a  fisherman  of  mark  and  a  true  sports- 
man, Brouillard  had  a  sudden  rush  of  blood  to  the 
anger  cells  when  he  realized  that  the  alarm  which 
had  brought  him  two  hard-breathing  miles  out  of 
his  way  had  been  the  discharge  of  a  stick  of  dy- 
namite thrown  into  the  Niquoia  for  the  fish-killing 
purpose.  In  his  code  the  dynamiting  of  a  stream 
figured  as  a  high  crime.  But  the  two  on  the  trail 
had  come  up,  and  his  protest  was  forestalled  by 

21 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

the  elderly  man  with  the  gray  face  and  the  sandy- 
gray  eyes,  whose  explosive  "Ha!"  was  as  much  a 
measure  of  his  breathlessness  as  of  his  surprise. 

"I  was  just  telling  Van  Bruce  that  his  thunder- 
ing fish  cartridge  would  raise  the  neighbors,"  the . 
trail  climber  went  on  with  a  stout  man's  chuckle. 
And  then:  "You're  one  of  the  Reclamation  en- 
gineers.? Great  work  the  government  is  under- 
taking here — fine  opportunity  to  demonstrate  the 
lifting  power  of  aggregated  capital  backed  by 
science  and  energy  and  a  whole  heap  of  initia- 
tive. It's  a  high  honor  to  be  connected  with  it, 
and  that's  a  fact.  You  are  connected  with  it, 
aren't  you?" 

Brouillard's  nod  was  for  the  man,  but  his  words 
were  for  the  young  woman  whose  beauty  refused 
to  be  quenched  by  the  touring  handicaps.  "Yes, 
I  am  in  charge  of  it,"  he  said. 

"Ha!"  said  the  stout  man,  and  this  time  the 
exclamation  was  purely  approbative.  "Chief 
engineer,  eh?  That's  fine,  jine I  You're  young, 
and  you've  climbed  pretty  fast.  But  that's  the 
way  with  you  young  men  nowadays;  you  begin 
where  we  older  fellows  leave  off.  I'm  glad  we  met 
you.  My  name  is  Cortwright — J.  Wesley  Cort- 
wright,  of  Chicago.     And  yours  is ?  " 

Brouillard  named  himself  in  one  word.     Stran- 

22 


J.  Wesley  Croesus 

gers  usually  found  him  bluntly  unresponsive  to 
anything  like  effusiveness,  but  he  was  finding  it  cu- 
riously difficult  to  resist  the  good-natured  heart- 
iness which  seemed  to  exude  from  the  talkative 
gentleman,  overlaying  him  like  the  honeydew  on 
the  leaves  in  a  droughty  forest. 

If  Mr.  J.  Wesley  Cortwright's  surprise  on  hear- 
ing the  Brouillard  surname  was  not  genuine  it 
was  at  least  an  excellent  imitation. 

"Well,  well,  well — you  don't  say!  Not  of  the 
Brouillards  of  Knox  County,  Indiana.^ — but,  of 
course,  you  must  be.  There  is  only  the  one  family 
that  I  ever  heard  of,  and  it  is  mighty  good,  old 
voyageur  stock,  too,  dating  'way  back  to  the  Rev- 
olutionary War,  and  further.  I've  bought  hogs  of 
the  farmer  Brouillards  hundreds  of  times  when  I 
was  in  the  packing  business,  and  I  want  to  tell 
you  that  no  finer  animals  ever  came  into  the 
Chicago  market." 

"Yes?"  said  Brouillard,  driving  the  word  in 
edgewise.  "I  am  sorry  to  say  that  I  don't  know 
many  of  the  farmers.  Our  branch  of  the  family 
settled  near  Vincennes,  and  my  father  was  on  the 
bench,  when  he  wasn't  in  politics." 

"What?  Not  Judge  Antoine!  Why,  my  dear 
young  man!  Do  you  know  that  I  once  had  the 
pleasure  of  introducing  your  good  father  to  my 

23 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

bankers  in  Chicago?  It  was  )^ears  ago,  at  a  time 
when  he  was  interested  in  floating  a  bond  issue 
for  some  growing  industry  down  on  the  Wabash. 
And  to  think  that  away  out  here  in  this  howHng 
wilderness,  a  thousand  miles  from  nowhere,  as 
you  might  say,  I  should  meet  his  son!" 

Brouillard  laughed  and  fell  headlong  into  the 
pit  of  triteness. 

"The  world  isn't  so  very  big  when  you  come 
to  surround  it  properly,  Mr.  Cortwright,"  he  as- 
serted. 

"That's  a  fact;  and  we're  doing  our  level  best 
nowadays  to  make  and  keep  it  little,"  buzzed  the 
portly  man  cheerfully,  with  a  wave  of  one  pudgy 
arm  toward  the  automobile.  "It's  about  a  hun- 
dred and  twenty  miles  from  this  to  El  Gato,  on 
the  Grand  Canyon,  isn't  it,  Mr.  Brouillard .?  Well, 
we  did  it  in  five  hours  yesterday  afternoon,  and  we 
could  have  cut  an  hour  out  of  that  if  Rickert 
hadn't  mistaken  the  way  across  the  Buckskin. 
Not  that  it  made  any  special  difference.  We  ex- 
pected to  spend  one  night  out  and  came  pre- 
pared." 

Brouillard  admitted  that  the  touring  feat  kept 
even  pace  with  the  quickening  spirit  of  the  age; 
but  he  did  not  add  that  the  motive  for  the  feat 
was  not  quite  so  apparent  as  it  might  be.     This 

24 


J.  Wesley  Croesus 

mystery,  however,  was  immediately  brushed  aside 
by  Mr.  Cortwright,  speaking  in  his  character  of 
universal  ouster  of  mysteries. 

"You  are  wondering  what  fool  notion  chased  us 
away  out  here  in  the  desert  when  we  had  a  com- 
fortable hotel  to  stop  at,"  he  rattled  on.  "I'll  tell 
you,  Mr.  Brouillard — in  confidence.  It  was  curi- 
osity— raw,  country  curiosity.  The  papers  and 
magazines  have  been  full  of  this  Buckskin  recla- 
mation scheme,  and  we  wanted  to  see  the  place 
where  all  the  wonderful  miracles  were  going  to 
get  themselves  wrought  out.  Have  you  got  time 
to  'put  us  next'?" 

Brouillard,  as  the  son  of  the  man  who  had  been 
introduced  to  the  Chicago  money  gods  in  his 
hour  of  need,  could  scarcely  do  less  than  to  take 
the  time.  The  project,  he  explained,  contem- 
plated the  building  of  a  high  dam  across  the  upper 
end  of  the  Niquoia  Canyon  and  the  converting 
of  the  inland  valley  above  into  a  great  storage 
reservoir.  From  this  reservoir  a  series  of  dis- 
tributing canals  would  lead  the  water  out  upon 
the  arid  lands  of  the  Buckskin  and  the  miracle 
would  be  a  fact  accomplished. 

"Sure,  sure!"  said  the  cheerful  querist,  feeling 
in  the  pockets  of  the  automobile  coat  for  a  cigar. 
At  the  match-striking  instant  he  remembered  a 

25 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

thing  neglected.  "By  George!  you'll  have  to  ex- 
cuse me,  Mr.  Brouillard;  I'm  always  forgetting 
the  little  social  dewdabs.  Let  me  present  you  to 
my  daughter  Genevieve.  Gene,  shake  hands  with 
the  son  of  my  good  old  friend  Judge  Antoine 
Brouillard,  of  Vincennes." 

It  was  rather  awkwardly  done,  and  somehow 
Brouillard  could  not  help  fancying  that  Mr.  Cort- 
wright  could  have  done  it  better;  that  the  roughly 
informal  introduction  was  only  one  of  the  com- 
ponent parts  of  a  studied  brusquerie  which  Mr. 
Cortwright  could  put  on  and  ofF  at  will,  like  a  well- 
worn  working  coat.  But  when  the  unquenchable 
beauty  stripped  her  gauntlet  and  gave  him  her 
hand,  with  a  dazzling  smile  and  a  word  of  acknowl- 
edgment which  was  not  borrowed  from  her  fa- 
ther's effusive  vocabulary,  he  straightway  fell 
into  another  pit  of  triteness  and  his  saving  first 
impressions  of  Mr.  J.  Wesley  Cortwright's  char- 
acter began  to  fade. 

"I'm  immensely  interested,"  was  Miss  Cort- 
wright's comment  on  the  outlining  of  the  recla- 
mation project.  "Do  you  mean  to  say  that  real 
farms  with  green  things  growing  on  them  can  be 
made  out  of  that  frightful  desert  we  drove  over 
yesterday  afternoon.?" 

Brouillard  smiled  and  plunged  fatuously.     "Oh, 

26 


J.  Wesley  Croesus 

yes;  the  farms  are  already  there.  Nature  made 
them,  you  know;  she  merely  forgot  to  arrange  for 
their  watering."  He  was  going  on  to  tell  about 
the  exhaustive  experiments  the  Department  of 
Agriculture  experts  had  been  making  upon  the 
Buckskin  soils  when  the  gentleman  whose  name 
had  once  figured  upon  countless  thousands  of  lard 
packages  cut  in. 

"Do  you  know  what  I'm  thinking  about,  Mr. 
Brouillard?  I'm  saying  it  over  soft  and  slow  to 
myself  that  no  young  man  in  this  world  ever  had 
such  a  magnificent  fighting  chance  as  you  have 
right  here,"  he  averred,  the  sandy-gray  eyes  grow- 
ing suddenly  alert  and  shrewd.  "If  you  don't 
come  out  of  this  with  money  enough  to  buy  in  all 
those  bonds  your  father  was  placing  that  time 
in  Chicago — but  of  course  you  will." 

"I'm  afraid  I  don't  quite  understand  w^hat  you 
mean,  Mr.  Cortwright,"  said  Brouillard,  with 
some  inner  monitor  warning  him  that  it  would 
be  better  not  to  understand. 

The  portly  gentleman  became  suddenly  face- 
tious. 

"Hear  him,  Gene,"  he  chuckled,  sharing  the 
joke  with  his  daughter;  "he  says  he  doesn't  under- 
stand!" Then  to  Brouillard:  "Say,  young  man; 
you  don't  mean  to  tell  me  that  your  father's  son 

27 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

needs  a  guardian,  do  you?  You  know  exactly 
where  these  canals  are  going  to  run  and  all  the 
choice  spots  they  are  going  to  irrigate;  what's  to 
prevent  your  getting  in  ahead  of  the  rush  and 
taking  up  a  dozen  or  so  of  those  prime  quarter- 
sections — homesteads,  town  sites,  and  the  like? 
Lack  of  money?  Why,  bless  your  soul,  there  are 
plenty  of  us  who  would  fall  all  over  ourselves 
running  to  back  a  proposition  like  that — any 
God's  quantity  of  us  who  would  fairly  throw  the 
working  capital  at  you!  For  that  matter,  I  don't 
know  but  I'd  undertake  to  finance  you  alone." 

Brouillard's  first  impulse  sprang  full-grown  out 
of  honest  anger.  That  any  man  who  had  known 
his  father  should  make  such  a  proposal  to  that 
father's  son  was  a  bald  insult  to  the  father's 
memory.  But  the  calmer  second  thought  turned 
wrath  into  amused  tolerance.  The  costly  tour- 
ing-car, the  idle,  time-killing  jaunt  in  the  desert, 
the  dynamiting  of  the  river  for  the  sake  of  taking 
a  few  fish— all  these  were  the  indices  of  a  point  of 
view  limited  strictly  by  a  successful  market  for 
hog  products.  Why  should  he  go  out  of  his  way 
to  quarrel  with  it  on  high  moral  grounds? 

"You  forget  that  I  am  first  of  all  the  govern- 
ment's hired  man,  Mr.  Cortwright,"  he  demurred. 
"My  job  of  dam  building  will  be  fully  big  enough 

28 


J.  Wesley  Croesus 

and  strenuous  enough  to  keep  me  busy.  Aside 
from  that,  I  fancy  the  department  heads  would 
take  it  rather  hard  if  we  fellows  in  the  field  went 
plum  picking." 

"Let  them!"  retorted  the  potential  backer  of 
profitable  side  issues.  "What's  the  odds  if  you 
go  to  it  and  bring  back  the  money.?  I  tell  you, 
Mr.  Brouillard,  money — bunched  money — is  what 
talks.  A  good,  healthy  bank  balance  makes  so 
much  noise  that  you  can't  hear  the  knockers.  If 
the  Washington  crowd  had  your  chance — but 
never  mind,  that's  your  business  and  none  of  mine, 
and  you'll  take  it  as  it's  meant,  as  a  good-natured 
hint  to  your  father's  son.  How  far  is  it  up  to 
where  you  are  going  to  build  your  dam?" 

Brouillard  gave  the  distance,  and  Mr.  Cort- 
wright  measured  the  visible  trail  grades  with  a 
deprecatory  eye. 

"Do  you  think  my  daughter  could  walk  it?"  he 
asked. 

Miss  Genevieve  answered  for  herself:  "Of 
course  I  can  walk  it;  can't  I,  Mr.  Brouillard?" 

"I'll  be  glad  to  show  you  the  way  if  you  care  to 
try,"  Brouillard  offered;  and  the  tentative  invi- 
tation was  promptly  accepted. 

The  transfer  of  view-points  from  the  lower  end 
of  the  canyon  to  the  upper  was  effected  without 

29 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

incident,  save  at  its  beginning,  when  the  father 
would  have  called  down  to  the  young  man  who 
had  waded  ashore  and  was  drying  himself  before 
the  camp-fire.  *' Van  Bruce  won't  care  to  go,"  the 
daughter  hastened  to  say;  and  Brouillard,  whose 
gift  it  was  to  be  able  to  pick  out  and  identify  the 
human  dereHct  at  long  range,  understood  perfectly 
well  the  reason  for  the  young  woman's  hasty  inter- 
ruption. One  result  of  the  successfully  marketed 
lard  packages  was  very  plainly  evident  in  the  dis- 
sipated face  and  hangdog  attitude  of  the  mar- 
keter's son. 

Conversation  flagged,  even  to  the  discourage- 
ment of  a  voluble  money  king,  on  the  climb  from 
the  Buckskin  level  to  that  of  the  reservoir  valley. 
The  trail  was  narrow,  and  Brouillard  uncon- 
sciously set  a  pace  which  was  almost  inhospitable 
for  a  stockily  built  man  whose  tendency  was  to- 
ward increasing  waist  measures.  But  when  they 
reached  the  pine-tree  of  the  anchored  blue-prints 
at  the  upper  portal,  Mr.  Cortwright  recovered  his 
breath  sufficiently  to  gasp  his  appreciation  of  the 
prospect  and  its  possibilities. 

"Why,  good  goodness,  Mr.  Brouillard,  it's 
practically  all  done  for  you!"  he  wheezed,  taking 
in  the  level,  mountain-enclosed  valley  with  an 
appraisive    eye-sweep.     "Van     Bruce    and    the 

30 


J.  Wesley  Croesus 

chauffeur  came  up  here  last  night,  with  one  of  the 
car  lamps  for  a  lantern,  but  of  course  they  couldn't 
bring  back  any  idea  of  the  place.  What  will  you 
do? — build  your  dam  right  here  and  take  out  your 
canal  through  the  canyon?     Is  that  the  plan?" 

Brouillard  nodded  and  went  a  little  further  into 
details,  showing  how  the  inward-arching  barrier 
would  be  anchored  into  the  two  opposing  moun- 
tain buttresses. 

"And  the  structure  itself — how  high  is  it  to 
be?" 

"Two  hundred  feet  above  the  spillway  apron 
foot." 

The  lard  millionaire  twisted  his  short,  fat  neck 
and  guessed  the  distance  up  the  precipitous  slopes 
of  Chigringo  and  Jack's  Mountain. 

"That  will  be  a  whale  of  a  chunk  of  mason- 
ry," he  said.  Then,  with  businesslike  directness: 
"What  will  you  build  it  of? — concrete?" 

"Yes;  concrete  and  steel." 

"Then  you  are  going  to  need  Portland  cement 
— a  whole  world  of  it.  Where  will  you  get  it? 
And  how  will  you  get  it  here?" 

Brouillard  smiled  inwardly  at  the  pork  pack- 
er's suddenly  awakened  interest  in  the  technical 
ways  and  means.  His  four  years  in  the  desert 
had  taken  him  out  of  touch  with  a  money-making 

31 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

world,  and  this  momentary  contact  with  one  of 
its  successful  devotees  was  illuminating.  He  had 
a  growing  conviction  that  the  sordid  atmosphere 
which  appeared  to  be  as  the  breath  of  life  to  Mr. 
J.  Wesley  Cortwright  would  presently  begin  to 
make  things  taste  coppery,  but  the  inextinguish- 
able charm  of  the  veiled  princess  was  a  compen- 
sation. It  was  partly  for  the  sake  of  seeing  her 
with  the  veil  abolished  that  he  recovered  the 
paper-weighting  field-glass  and  gave  it  to  her, 
showing  her  how  to  focus  it  upon  the  upper 
reaches  of  the  valley. 

"We  are  in  luck  on  the  cement  proposition," 
he  told  the  eager  money-maker.  "We  shall  prob- 
ably manufacture  our  own  supply  right  here  on 
the  ground.  There  is  plenty  of  limestone  and  an 
excellent  shale  in  those  hills  just  beyond  our  camp; 
and  for  burning  fuel  there  is  a  fairly  good  vein  of 
bituminous  coal  underlying  that  farther  range  at 
the  head  of  the  valley." 

"H'm,"  said  the  millionaire;  "a  cement  plant, 
eh?  There's  money  in  that  anywhere  on  the 
face  of  the  globe,  just  now.  And  over  here,  where 
there  is  no  transportation — Gad!  if  you  only  had 
somebody  to  sell  cement  to,  you  could  ask  your 
own  price.  The  materials  have  all  been  tested, 
I  suppose?" 

32 


J.  Wesley  Croesus 

"Oh,  yes;  we've  had  experts  in  here  for  more 
than  a  year.     The  material  is  all  right." 

*'And  your  labor  .f"' 

"On  the  dam,  you  mean?  One  advantage  of 
concrete  work  is  that  it  does  not  require  any  great 
proportion  of  skilled  labor,  the  crushing,  mixing, 
and  placing  all  being  done  by  machinery.  We 
shall  work  all  the  Indians  we  can  get  from  the 
Navajo  Reservation,  forty-odd  miles  south  of  here; 
for  the  remainder  we  shall  import  men  from  the 
States,  bringing  them  in  over  the  Timanyoni  High 
Line — the  trail  from  Quesado  on  the  Red  Butte 
Western.  At  least,  that  is  what  we  shall  do  for 
the  present.  Later  on,  the  railroad  will  probably 
build  an  extension  up  the  Barking  Dog  and  over 
War  Arrow  Pass." 

Mr.  Cortwright's  calculating  eye  roved  once 
more  over  the  attractive  prospect. 

"Fuel  for  your  power  plant? — ^wood  I  take 
it?"  he  surmised;  and  then:  "Oh,  I  forgot;  you 
say  you  have  coal." 

"Yes;  there  is  coal,  of  a  sort;  good  enough 
for  the  cement  kilns.  But  we  sha'n't  burn  it  for 
power.  Neither  shall  we  burn  the  timber,  which 
can  be  put  to  much  better  use  in  building  and  in 
false-  and  form-work.  There  are  no  finer  lumber 
forests  this   side  of  the   Sierras.     For  power  we 

33 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

shall  utilize  the  river.  There  is  another  small 
canyon  at  the  head  of  the  valley  where  a  tempo- 
rary dam  can  be  built  which  will  deHver  power 
enough  to  run  anything — an  entire  manufactur- 
ing city,  if  we  had  one." 

Mr.  Cortwright  made  a  clucking  noise  with  his 
tongue  and  blew  his  cheeks  out  Hke  a  swimmer 
gasping  for  breath. 

"JuHus  Caesar!"  he  exploded.  "You  stand 
there  and  tell  me  calmly  that  the  government 
has  all  these  resources  coopered  up  here  in  a 
barrel? — that  nobody  is  going  to  get  a  chance  to 
make  any  money  out  of  them?  It's  a  crime,  Mr. 
Brouillard;    that's  just  what  it  is — a  crime!" 

"No;  I  didn't  say  that.  The  resources  just 
happen  to  be  here  and  we  shall  turn  them  to 
good  account.  But  if  there  were  any  feasible 
transportation  facilities  I  doubt  if  we  should 
make  use  of  these  native  raw  materials.  It  is 
the  policy  of  the  department  to  go  into  the  mar- 
ket Hke  any  other  buyer  where  it  can.  But  here 
there  are  no  sellers,  or,  rather,  no  way  in  which 
the  sellers  can  reach  us." 

"No  sellers  and  no  chance  for  a  man  to  get 
the  thin  edge  of  a  wedge  in  anywhere,"  lamented 
the  money-maker  despairingly.  Then  his  eye 
lighted  upon  the  graybeard  dump  of  a  solitary 

34 


J.  Wesley  Croesus 

mine  high  up  on  the  face  of  Mount  Chigringo. 
"What's  that  up  there?"  he  demanded, 

"It  is  a  mine,"  said  Brouillard,  showing  Miss 
Cortwright  how  to  adjust  the  field-glass  for  the 
shorter  distance.  "Two  men  named  Massingale, 
father  and  son,  are  working  it,  I'm  told."  And 
then  again  to  Miss  Genevieve:  "That  is  their 
cabin — on  the  trail  a  little  to  the  right  of  the 
tunnel  opening." 

"I  see  it  quite  plainly,"  she  returned.  "Two 
people  are  just  leaving  it  to  ride  down  the  path — 
a  man  and  a  woman,  I  think,  though  the  woman 
— if  it  is  a  woman — is  riding  on  a  man's  sad- 
dle." 

Brouillard's  eyebrows  went  up  in  a  little  arch 
of  surprise.  Harding,  the  topographical  enginee? 
who  had  made  all  the  preliminary  surveys  an.i 
had  spent  the  better  part  of  the  former  summer  in 
the  Niquoia,  had  reported  on  the  Massingales, 
father  and  son,  and  his  report  had  conveyed  a 
hint  of  possible  antagonism  on  the  part  of  the 
mine  owners  to  the  government  project.  But 
there  had  been  no  mention  of  a  woman. 

"The  Massingale  mine,  eh?"  broke  in  the  ap- 
praiser of  values  crisply.  "They  showed  us  some 
ore  specimens  from  that  property  while  we  were 
stopping  over  in  Red  Butte.     It's  rich — good  and 

35 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

plenty  rich — if  they  have  the  quantity.  And 
somebody  told  me  they  had  the  quantity,  too; 
only  it  was  too  far  from  the  railroad — couldn't 
jack-freight  it  profitably  over  the  Timanyonis." 

"In  which  case  it  is  one  of  many,"  Brouillard 
said,  taking  refuge  in  the  generalities. 

But  Mr.  Cortwright  was  not  to  be  so  easily 
diverted  from  the  pointed  particulars — the  par- 
ticulars having  to  do  with  the  pursuit  of  the 
market  trail. 

"I'm  beginning  to  get  my  feet  on  bottom,  Brouil- 
lard," he  said,  dropping  the  courtesy  prefix  and 
shoving  his  fat  hands  deep -into  the  pockets  of 
the  dust-coat.  "There's  a  business  proposition 
here,  and  it  looks  mighty  good  to  me.  That  was 
a  mere  nursery  notion  I  gave  you  a  while  back — 
about  picking  up  homesteads  and  town  sites  in 
the  Buckskin.  The  big  thing  is  right  here.  I 
tell  you,  I  can  smell  money  in  this  valley  of  yours 
— scads  of  it." 

Brouillard  laughed.  "  It  is  only  the  fragrance 
of  future  Reclamation-Service  appropriations,"  he 
suggested.  "There  will  be  a  good  bit  of  money 
spent  here  before  the  Buckskin  Desert  gets  its 
maiden  wetting." 

"I  don't  mean  that  at  all,"  was  the  impatient 
rejoinder.     "Let  me  show  you:  you  are  going  to 

36 


J.  Wesley  Croesus 

have  a  population  of  some  sort,  if  it's  only  the 
population  that  your  big  job  will  bring  here. 
That's  the  basis.  Then  you're  going  to  need 
material  by  the  train  load,  not  the  raw  stuff, 
which  you  say  is  right  here  on  the  ground,  but  the 
manufactured  article — cement,  lumber,  and  steel. 
You  can  ship  this  material  in  over  the  range  at 
prices  that  will  be  pretty  nearly  prohibitory,  or, 
as  you  suggest,  it  can  be  manufactured  right  here 
on  the  spot." 

"The  cement  and  the  lumber  can  be  produced 
here,  but  not  the  steel,"  Brouillard  corrected. 

"That's  where  you're  off,"  snapped  the  mil- 
honaire.  "There  are  fine  ore  beds  in  the  Ho- 
phras  and  a  pretty  good  quahty  of  coking  coal. 
Ten  or  twelve  miles  of  a  narrow-gauge  railroad 
would  dump  the  pig  metal  into  the  upper  end  of 
your  valley,  and  there  you  are.  With  a  small  re- 
duction plant  you  could  tell  the  big  steel  people 
to  go  hang." 

Brouillard  admitted  the  postulate  without  prej- 
udice to  a  keen  and  growing  wonder.  How  did 
it  happen  that  this  Chicago  money  king  had 
taken  the  trouble  to  inform  himself  so  accurately 
in  regard  to  the  natural  resources  of  the  Niquoia 
region.''  Had  he  not  expressly  declared  that  the 
object  of  the   desert   automobile  trip  was   mere 

37 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

tourist  curiosity?  Given  a  little  time,  the  en- 
gineer would  have  cornered  the  inquiry,  making 
it  yield  some  sort  of  a  reasonable  answer;  but 
Mr.  Cortwright  was  galloping  on  again. 

"There  you  are,  then,  with  the  three  prime 
requisites  in  raw  material:  cement  stock,  timber, 
and  pig  metal.  Fuel  you've  got,  you  say,  and  if 
it  isn't  good  enough,  your  dummy  railroad  can 
supply  you  from  the  Hophra  mines.  Best  of  all, 
you've  got  power  to  burn — and  that's  the  key  to 
any  manufacturing  proposition.  Well  and  good. 
Now,  you  know,  and  I  know,  that  the  government 
doesn't  care  to  go  into  the  manufacturing  busi- 
ness when  it  can  help  it.     Isn't  that  so,?" 

"Unquestionably.  But  this  is  a  case  of  can't- 
help-it,"  Brouillard  argued.  "You  couldn't  be- 
gin to  interest  private  capital  in  any  of  these  in- 
dustries you  speak  of." 

"Why  not?"  was  the  curt  demand. 

"Because  of  their  impermanence — their  depen- 
dence upon  a  market  which  will  quit  definitely 
when  the  dam  is  completed.  What  you  are  sug- 
gesting predicates  a  good,  busy  little  city  in  this 
valley,  behind  the  dam — since  there  is  no  other 
feasible  place  for  it — and  it  would  be  strictly  a 
city  of  numbered  days.  When  the  dam  is  com- 
pleted  and   the   spillway   gates    are   closed,   the 

38 


J.  Wesley  Croesus 

Niqoyastcadje  and  everything  in  it  will  go  down 
under  two  hundred  feet  of  water." 

"The — what?"  queried  Miss  Cortwright,  low- 
ering the  glass  with  which  she  had  been  following 
the  progress  of  the  two  riders  down  the  Buck- 
skin trail  from  the  high-pitched  mine  on  Chi- 
gringo. 

"The  Niqoyastcadje — ' Place-where-they-came- 
up,'  "  said  Brouillard,  elucidating  for  her.  "That 
is  the  Navajo  name  for  this  valley.  The  Indians 
have  a  legend  that  this  is  the  spot  where  their 
tribal  ancestors  came  up  from  the  underworld. 
Our  map  makers  shortened  it  to  'Niquoia'  and 
the  cow-men  of  the  Buckskin  foot-hills  have  cut 
that  to  'Nick-wire.'  " 

This  bit  of  explanatory  place  lore  was  entirely 
lost  upon  Mr.  J.  Wesley  Cortwright.  He  was 
chewing  the  ends  of  his  short  mustaches  and  scowl- 
ing thoughtfully  out  upon  the  possible  site  of  the 
future  industrial  city  of  the  plain. 

"Say,  Brouillard,"  he  cut  in,  "you  get  me  the 
right  to  build  that  power  dam,  and  give  me  the 
contracts  for  what  material  you'd  rather  buy 
than  make,  and  I'll  be  switched  if  I  don't  take  a 
shot  at  this  drowning  proposition  myself.  I  tell 
you,  it  looks  pretty  good  to  me.  What  do  you 
say?" 

39 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"I'll  say  what  I  said  a  few  minutes  ago," 
laughed  the  young  chief  of  construction — "that 
I'm  only  a  hired  man.  You'll  have  to  go  a  good 
few  rounds  higher  up  on  the  authority  ladder  to 
close  a  deal  like  that.  I'm  not  sure  it  wouldn't 
require  an  act  of  Congress." 

"Well,  by  George,  we  might  get  even  that  if 
we  have  to,"  was  the  optimistic  assertion.  "You 
think  about  it." 

"I  guess  it  isn't  my  think,"  said  Brouillard, 
still  inclined  to  take  the  retired  pork  packer's 
suggestion  as  the  mere  ravings  of  a  money-mad 
promoter.  "As  the  government  engineer  in  charge 
of  this  work,  I  couldn't  afford  to  be  identified 
even  as  a  friendly  intermediary  in  any  such  scheme 
as  the  one  you  are  proposing." 

"Of  course,  I  suppose  not,"  agreed  the  would- 
be  promoter,  sucking  his  under  lip  in  a  way  omi- 
nously familiar  to  his  antagonists  in  the  wheat  pit. 
Then  he  glanced  at  his  watch  and  changed  the 
subject  abruptly.  "We'll  have  to  be  straggling 
back  to  the  chug-wagon.  Much  obliged  to  you, 
Mr.  Brouillard.  Will  you  come  down  and  see 
us  off.?" 

Brouillard  said  "yes,"  for  Miss  Cortwright's 
sake,  and  took  the  field-glass  she  was  returning 
to  put  it  back  upon  the  sheaf  of  blue-prints.     She 

40 


J.  Wesley  Croesus 

saw  what  he  did  with  it  and  made  instant  ac- 
knowledgments. 

*'It  was  good  of  you  to  neglect  your  work  for 
us,"  she  said,  smiling  level-eyed  at  him  when  he 
straightened  up. 

He  was  frank  enough  to  tell  the  truth — or  part 
of  it. 

"It  was  the  dynamite  that  called  me  off. 
Doesn't  your  brother  know  that  it  is  illegal  to 
shoot  a  trout  stream?" 

She  waited  until  her  father  was  out  of  ear-shot 
on  the  gorge  trail  before  she  answered: 

"He  ought  to  know  that  it  is  caddish  and  un- 
sportsmanlike. I  didn't  know  what  he  and  Rick- 
ert  were  doing  or  I  should  have  stopped  them." 

"In  that  event  we  shouldn't  have  met,  and 
you  would  have  missed  your  chance  of  seeing 
the  Niqoyastcadje  and  the  site  of  the  city  that 
isn't  to  be — the  city  of  numbered  days,"  he 
jested,  adding,  less  lightly:  "You  wouldn't  have 
missed  very  much." 

"No.^"  she  countered  with  a  bright  return  of 
the  alluring  smile  which  he  had  first  seen  through 
the  filmy  gauze  of  the  automobile  veil.  "Do  you 
want  me  to  say  that  I  should  have  missed  a  great 
deal?     You  may  consider  it  said  if  you  wish." 

He  made  no  reply  to  the  bit  of  persiflage,  and 

41 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

a  little  later  felt  the  inward  warmth  of  an  upflash 
of  resentment  directed  not  at  his  companion  but 
at  himself  for  having  been  momentarily  tempted  to 
take  the  persiflage  seriously.  The  temptation  was 
another  of  the  consequences  of  the  four  years  of 
isolation  which  had  cut  him  off  from  the  world 
of  women  no  less  completely  than  from  the  world 
of  money-getting.  But  it  was  rather  humiliating, 
none  the  less. 

"What  have  I  done  to  make  you  forget  how  to 
talk.?"  she  wished  to  know,  five  minutes  further 
on,  when  his  silence  was  promising  to  outlast  the 
canyon  passage. 

"You?  Nothing  at  all,"  he  hastened  to  say. 
Then  he  took  the  first  step  in  the  fatal  road  of  at- 
tempting to  account  for  himself.  "But  I  have 
forgotten,  just  the  same.  It  has  been  years  since 
I  have  had  a  chance  to  talk  to  a  woman.  Do  you 
wonder  that  I  have  lost  the  knack?" 

"How  dreadful!"  she  laughed.  And  afterward, 
with  a  return  to  the  half-serious  mood  which  had 
threatened  to  reopen  the  door  so  lately  slammed 
in  the  face  of  temptation:  "Perhaps  we  shall 
come  back  to  Niqo — Niqoy — I  simply  cant  say  it 
without  sneezing — and  then  you  might  relearn 
some  of  the  things  you  have  forgotten.  Wouldn't 
that  be  dehghtful?" 

42 


J.  Wesley  Croesus 

This  time  he  chose  ^o  ignore  utterly  the  voice 
of  the  inward  monitor,  which  was  assuring  him 
coldly  that  young  women  of  Miss  Cortwright's 
world  plane  were  constrained  by  the  accepted 
rules  of  their  kind  to  play  the  game  in  season  and 
out  of  season,  and  his  half-laughing  reply  was  at 
once  a  defiance  and  a  counter-challenge. 

"I  dare  you  to  come!"  he  said  brazenly. 
**  Haven't  you  heard  how  the  men  of  the  desert 
camps  kill  each  other  for  the  chance  to  pick  up 
a  lady's  handkerchief.^" 

They  were  at  the  final  descent  in  the  trail, 
with  the  Buckskin  blanknesses  showing  hotly 
beyond  the  curtaining  of  pines,  and  there  was 
space  only  for  a  flash  of  the  beautiful  eyes  and  a 
beckoning  word. 

"In  that  case,  I  hope  you  know  how  to  shoot 
straight,  Mr.  Brouillard,"  she  said  quizzically; 
and  then  they  passed  at  a  step  from  romance  to 
the  crude  realities. 

The  realities  were  basing  themselves  upon  the 
advent  of  two  new-comers,  riding  down  the  Chi- 
gringo  trail  to  the  ford  which  had  been  the  scene 
of  the  fish  slaughtering;  a  sunburnt  young  man 
in  goatskin  "shaps,"  flannel  shirt  and  a  flapping 
Stetson,  and  a  girl  whose  face  reminded  Brouillard 
of  one  of  the  Madonnas,  whose  name  and  painter 

43 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

he  strove  vainly  to  recall.  Ten  seconds  farther 
along  the  horses  of  the  pair  were  sniffing  sus- 
piciously at  the  automobile,  and  the  young  man 
under  the  flapping  hat  was  telling  Van  Bruce 
Cortwright  what  he  thought  of  cartridge  fisher- 
men in  general,  and  of  this  present  cartridge  fish- 
erman in  particular. 

"Which  the  same,  being  translated  into  Buck- 
skin English,  hollers  like  this,"  he  concluded. 
"Don't  you  tote  any  more  fish  ca'tridges  into 
this  here  rese'vation;  not  no  more,  whatsoever. 
Who  says  so?  Well,  if  anybody  should  ask,  you 
might  say  it  was  Tig  Smith,  foreman  o'  the  Tri'- 
Circ'  outfit.  No,  I  ain't  no  game  warden,  but 
what  I  say  goes  as  she  lays.     Savez?" 

The  chaufi^eur  was  adjusting  something  under 
the  upturned  bonnet  of  the  touring-car  and  thus 
hiding  his  grin.  Mr.  Cortwright,  who  had  main- 
tained his  lead  on  the  descent  to  the  desert  level, 
was  trying  to  come  between  his  sullen-faced  son 
and  the  irate  cattleman,  money  in  hand.  Brouil- 
lard  walked  his  companion  down  to  the  car  and 
helped  her  to  a  seat  in  the  tonneau.  She  re- 
paid him  with  a  nod  and  a  smile,  and  when  he 
saw  that  the  crudities  were  not  troubling  her  he 
stepped  aside  and  unconsciously  fell  to  comparing 
the  two — the  girl  on  horseback  and  his  walking 
mate  of  the  canyon  passage. 

44 


J.  Wesley  Croesus 

They  had  Httle  enough  in  common,  apart  from 
their  descent  from  Eve,  he  decided — and  the  de- 
cision itself  was  subconscious.  The  miUionaire's 
daughter  was  a  warm  blonde,  beautiful,  queenly, 
a  finished  product  of  civilization  and  high-priced 
culture;  a  woman  of  the  world,  standing  but  a 
single  remove  from  the  generation  of  quick  money- 
getting  and  yet  able  to  make  the  money  take  its 
proper  place  as  a  means  to  an  end. 

And  the  girl  on  horseback?  Brouillard  had  to 
look  twice  before  he  could  attempt  to  classify  her, 
and  even  then  she  baffled  him.  A  rather  slight 
figure,  suggestive  of  the  flexible  strength  of  a 
silken  cord;  a  face  winsome  rather  than  beauti- 
ful; coils  and  masses  of  copper-brown  hair  escap- 
ing under  the  jaunty  cow-boy  hat;  eyes  ...  it 
was  her  eyes  that  made  Brouillard  look  the  third 
time:  they  were  blue,  with  a  hint  of  violet  in 
them;  he  made  sure  of  this  when  she  turned  her 
head  and  met  his  gaze  fearlessly  and  with  a  cer- 
tain calm  serenity  that  made  him  feel  suddenly 
uncomfortable  and  half  embarrassed.  Neverthe- 
less, he  would  not  look  aside;  and  he  caught  him- 
self wondering  if  her  cow-boy  lover — he  had 
already  jumped  to  the  sentimental  conclusion — 
had  ever  been  able  to  look  into  those  steadfast 
eyes  and  trifle  with  the  truth. 

45 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

So  far  the  young  chief  of  construction  had 
travelled  on  the  road  reflective  while  the  fish- 
slaughtering  matter  was  getting  itself  threshed 
out  at  the  river's  edge.  When  it  was  finally  set- 
tled— not  by  the  tender  of  money  that  Mr.  Cort- 
wright  had  made — the  man  Smith  and  his  pretty 
riding  mate  galloped  through  the  ford  and  dis- 
appeared among  the  barren  hills,  and  the  chauffeur 
was  at  liberty  to  start  the  motor. 

" j4u  revoir,  Mr.  Brouillard,"  said  the  princess, 
as  the  big  car  righted  itself  for  the  southward 
flight  into  the  desert.  Then,  when  the  wheels 
began  to  churn  in  the  loose  sand  of  the  halting 
place,  she  leaned  out  to  give  him  a  woman's  leave- 
taking.  "If  I  were  you  I  shouldn't  fall  in  love 
with  the  calm-eyed  goddess  who  rides  like  a  man. 
Mr.  Tri'-Circ'  Smith  might  object,  you  know; 
and  you  haven't  yet  told  me  whether  or  not  you 
can  shoot  straight." 

There  was  something  almost  heart-warming  in 
the  bit  of  parting  badinage;  something  to  make 
the  young  engineer  feel  figuratively  for  the  knife 
with  which  he  had  resolutely  cut  around  himself 
to  the  dividing  of  all  hindrances,  sentimental  or 
other,  on  a  certain  wretched  day  years  before 
when  he  had  shouldered  his  life  back-load. 

But  the  warmth  might  have  given  place  to  a 

46 


Brouillard  had  to  look  twice  before  he  could  attempt  to 
classify  her,  and  even  then  she  baffled  him. 


J.  Wesley  Croesus 

disconcerting  chill  if  he  could  have  heard  Mr.  J. 
Wesley  Cortwright's  remark  to  his  seat  companion, 
made  when  the  canyon  portal  of  the  Niquoia  and 
the  man  climbing  the  path  beside  it  were  hazy 
mirage  distortions  in  the  backward  distances. 

"He  isn't  going  to  be  the  dead  easy  mark  I 
hoped  to  find  in  the  son  of  the  old  bankrupt  hair- 
splitter,  Genie,  girl.  But  he'll  come  down  and 
hook  himself  all  right  if  the  bait  is  well  covered 
with  his  particular  brand  of  sugar.  Don't  you 
forget  it." 


47 


Ill 

Sands  of  Pactolus 

IF  Victor  Brouillard  had  been  disposed  to 
speculate  curiously  upon  the  possibilities  sug- 
gested by  Mr.  J.  Wesley  Cortwright  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  capitalist's  brief  visit  to  the  Niquoia, 
or  had  been  tempted  to  dwell  sentimentally  upon 
the  idyllic  crossing  of  orbits — Miss  Genevieve's 
and  his  own — on  the  desert's  rim,  there  was  little 
leisure  for  either  indulgence  during  the  strenuous 
early  summer  weeks  which  followed  the  Cort- 
wright invasion. 

Popular  belief  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding, 
it  is  not  precisely  true  that  all  government  under- 
takings are  dilatory  industrial  imitations,  designed, 
primarily,  to  promote  the  even-handed  cutting  of 
some  appropriation  pie,  and,  secondarily,  to  pro- 
vide easy  sinecures  for  placemen  and  political 
heelers.  Holding  no  brief  for  the  government, 
one  may  still  say  without  fear  of  contradiction 
that  laissez-faire  has  seldom  been  justly  charged 
against  the  Reclamation  Service.  Fairly  con- 
fronting his  problem,  Brouillard  did  not  find  him- 

48 


Sands  of  Pactolus 

self  hampered  by  departmental  inertia.  While 
he  was  rapidly  organizing  his  force  for  the  con- 
structive attack,  the  equipment  and  preliminary 
material  for  the  building  of  the  great  dam  were 
piling  up  by  the  train  load  on  the  side-tracks  at 
Quesado;  and  at  once  the  man-  and  beast-killing 
task  of  rushing  the  excavating  outfit  of  machinery, 
teams,  scrapers,  rock-drilling  installations,  steam- 
shovels,  and  the  like,  over  the  War  Arrow  trail 
was  begun. 

During  the  weeks  which  followed,  the  same 
trail,  and  a  httle  later  that  from  the  Navajo 
Reservation  on  the  south,  were  strung  with  ant- 
like processions  of  laborers  pouring  into  the  shut- 
in  valley  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Chigringo.  Almost 
as  if  by  magic  a  populous  camp  of  tents,  shelter 
shacks,  and  Indian  tepees  sprang  up  in  the  level 
bed-bottom  of  the  future  lake;  camp-fires  gave 
place  to  mess  kitchens;  the  commissary  became  a 
busy  department  store  stocked  with  everything 
that  thrifty  or  thriftless  labor  might  wish  to  pur- 
chase; and  daily  the  great  foundation  scorings 
in  the  buttressing  shoulders  of  Jack's  Mountain 
and  Chigringo  grew  deeper  and  wider  under  the 
churning  of  the  air-drills,  the  crashings  of  the 
dynamite,  and  the  rattle  and  chug  of  the  steam- 
shovels. 

49 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

Magically,  too,  the  life  of  the  isolated  working 
camp  sprang  into  being.  From  the  beginning  its 
speech  was  a  curious  polyglot;  the  hissings  and 
bubblings  of  the  melting-pot  out  of  which  a  new 
citizenry  is  poured.  Poles  and  Slovaks,  men  from 
the  slopes  of  the  Carpathians,  the  terraces  of  the 
Apennines,  and  the  passes  of  the  Balkans;  Scan- 
dinavians from  the  pineries  of  the  north,  and  a 
colony  of  railroad-grading  Greeks,  fresh  from  the 
building  of  a  great  transcontinental  line;  all  these 
and  more  were  spilled  into  the  melting-pot,  and  a 
new  Babel  resulted.  Only  the  Indians  held  aloof. 
Careful  from  the  first  for  these  wards  of  the  na- 
tion, Brouillard  had  made  laws  of  Draconian 
severity.  The  Navajos  were  isolated  upon  a 
small  reservation  of  their  own  on  the  Jack's 
Mountain  side  of  the  Niquoia,  a  full  half  mile 
from  the  many-tongued  camp  in  the  open  valley; 
and  for  the  man  caught  "boot-legging"  among  the 
Indians  there  were  penalties  swift  and  merciless. 

It  was  after  the  huge  task  of  foundation  dig- 
ging was  well  under  way  and  the  work  of  con- 
structing the  small  power  dam  in  the  upper  canyon 
had  been  begun  that  the  young  chief  of  con- 
struction, busy  with  a  thousand  details,  had  his 
first  forcible  reminder  of  the  continued  existence 
of  Mr.  J.  Wesley  Cortwright. 

SO 


Sands  of  Pactolus 

It  came  in  the  form  of  a  communication  from 
Washington,  forwarded  by  special  post-rider  ser- 
vice from  Quesado,  and  it  called  a  halt  upon  the 
up-river  power  project.  In  accordance  with  its 
settled  pohcy,  the  Reclamation  Service  would 
refrain,  in  the  Niquoia  as  elsewhere,  from  enter- 
ing into  competition  with  private  citizens;  would 
do  nothing  to  discourage  the  investment  of  pri- 
vate capital.  A  company  had  been  formed  to 
take  over  the  power  production  and  to  establish 
a  plant  for  the  manufacture  of  cement,  and  Brouil- 
lard  was  instructed  to  govern  himself  accord- 
ingly. For  his  information,  the  department 
letter-writer  went  on  to  say,  it  was  to  be  under- 
stood that  the  company  was  duly  organized  under 
the  provisions  of  an  act  of  Congress;  that  it 
had  bound  itself  to  furnish  power  and  material 
at  prices  satisfactory  to  the  Service;  and  that 
the  relations  between  it  and  the  government 
field-staff  on  the  ground  were  to  be  entirely 
friendly. 

"It's  a  graft — a  pull-down  with  a  profit  in  it 
for  some  bunch  of  money  leeches  a  Kttle  higher 
up!"  was  the  young  chief's  angry  comment  when 
he  had  given  Grislow  the  letter  to  read.  "With- 
out knowing  any  more  of  the  details  than  that 
letter  gives,  I'd  be  willing  to  bet  a  month's  pay 

51 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

that  this  is  the  fine  ItaHan  hand  of  Mr.  J.  Wes- 
ley Cortwright!" 

Grislow's  eyebrows  went  up  in  doubtful  inter- 
rogation. 

"Ought  I  to  know  the  gentleman?"  he  queried 
mildly.     "I  don't  seem  to  recall  the  name." 

Brouillard  got  up  from  his  desk  to  go  and  stand 
at  one  of  the  little  square  windows  of  the  log- 
built  office  quarters.  For  some  reason  which  he 
had  not  taken  the  trouble  to  define,  even  to 
himself,  he  had  carefully  refrained  from  telling 
the  hydrographer  anything  about  the  early  morn- 
ing meeting  with  the  automobilists  at  the  edge 
of  the  desert  basin;  of  that  and  of  the  subse- 
quent visit  of  two  of  them  to  the  site  of  the 
dam. 

"No;  you  don't  know  him,"  he  said,  turning 
back  to  the  w^orker  at  the  mapping  table.  "It 
w^as  his  motor  party  that  was  camping  at  the 
Buckskin  ford  the  night  we  broke  in  here — the 
night  when  we  saw  the  search-light." 

"And  you  met  him?  I  thought  you  told  me 
you  merely  went  down  and  took  a  look — didn't 
butt  in?" 

"I  didn't — that  night.  But  the  next  mom- 
mg 

The  hydrographer's  smile  was  a  jocose  grimace. 

52 


Sands  of  Pactolus 

"I  recollect  now;  you  said  that  one  of  the  mo- 
torists was  a  young  woman." 

Brouillard  resented  the  implication  irritably. 

*' Don't  be  an  ass,  Murray,"  he  snapped;  and 
then  he  went  on,  with  the  frown  of  impatience 
still  wrinkling  between  his  eyes.  "The  young 
woman  was  the  daughter.  There  was  a  cub  of  a 
son,  and  he  fired  a  stick  of  dynamite  in  the  river 
to  kill  a  mess  of  trout.  I  heard  the  explosion 
and  thought  it  might  be  the  gasolene  tank  of  the 
car. 

"Naturally,"  said  Grislow  guilelessly.  "And, 
quite  as  naturally,  you  went  down  to  see.  Tm 
not  sure  that  I  shouldn't  have  done  it  myself." 

"Of  course  you  would,"  was  the  touchy  retort. 
"When  I  got  there  and  found  out  what  had  hap- 
pened, I  meant  to  make  a  second  drop-out;  but 
Cortwright  and  his  daughter  were  coming  up  the 
trail,  and  he  hailed  me.  After  that  I  couldn't 
do  less  than  the  decent  thing.  They  wanted  to 
see  the  valley,  and  I  showed  them  the  way  in. 
Cortwright  is  the  multimillionaire  pork  packer 
of  Chicago,  and  he  went  up  into  the  air  like  a 
lunatic  over  the  money-making  chances  there 
were  going  to  be  in  this  job.  I  didn't  pay  much 
attention  to  his  chortlings  at  the  time.  It  didn't 
seem   remotely  credible  that   anybody  with   real 

53 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

money  to  invest  would  plant  it  in  the  bottom  of 
the  Niquoia  reservoir." 

"But  now  you  think  he  is  going  to  make  his 
blufFgood?" 

"That  looks  very  much  like  it,"  said  Brouil- 
lard  sourly,  pointing  to  the  letter  from  Washing- 
ton. "That  scheme  is  going  to  change  the  whole 
face  of  Nature  for  us  up  here,  Grislow.  It  will 
spell  trouble  right  from  the  jump." 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  was  the  deprecatory  re- 
joinder. "It  will  relieve  us  of  a  lot  of  side-issue 
industries — cut  'em  out  and  bury  'em,  so  far  as 
we  are  concerned." 

"That  part  of  it  is  all  right,  of  course;  but  it 
won't  end  there;  not  by  a  hundred  miles.  We've 
started  in  here  to  be  a  law  to  ourselves — as  we've 
got  to  be  to  handle  this  mixed  multitude  of  brig- 
ands and  ditch  diggers.  But  when  this  new  com- 
pany gets  on  the  ground  it  will  be  different. 
There  will  be  pull-hauling  and  scrapping  and 
liquor  selling,  and  we  can't  go  in  and  straighten 
things  out  with  a  club  as  we  do  now.  Jobson 
says  in  that  letter  that  the  relations  have  got  to 
be  friendly!  I'll  bet  anything  you  like  that  I'll 
have  to  go  and  read  the  riot  act  to  those  people 
before  they've  been  twenty-four  hours  on  their 
job!" 

54 


Sands  of  Pactolus 

Grislow  was  trying  the  point  of  his  mapping- 
pen  on  his  thumb  nail.  "Curious  that  this  par- 
ticular fly  should  drop  into  your  pot  of  ointment 
on  your  birthday,  wasn't  it?"  he  remarked. 

"O  suffering  Jehu!"  gritted  Brouillard  rage- 
fully.  "Are  you  never  going  to  forget  that  sense- 
less bit  of  twaddle?" 

"You're  not  giving  me  a  chance  to  forget  it," 
said  the  map-maker  soberly.  "You  told  me  that 
night  that  the  seven-year  characteristic  was 
change;  and  you're  a  changed  man,  Victor,  if 
ever  there  was  one.  Moreover,  it  began  that 
very  night — or  the  next  morning." 

"Oh,  damn!" 

"Certainly,  if  you  wish  it.  But  that  is  only 
another  proof  of  what  I  am  saying.  It's  getting 
on  your  nerves  now.  Do  you  know  what  the 
men  have  named  you?  They  call  you  'Hell's- 
Fire.'  That  has  come  to  be  your  word  when  you 
light  into  them  for  something  they've  done  or 
haven't  done.  No  longer  ago  than  this  morning 
you  were  swearing  at  Griffith,  as  if  you'd  forgot- 
ten that  the  boy  is  only  a  year  out  of  college  and 
can't  be  supposed  to  know  as  much  as  Leshing- 
ton  or  Anson.     Where  is  your  sense  of  humor?" 

Brouillard  laughed,  if  only  to  prove  that  his 
sense  of  humor  was  still  unimpaired. 

55 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"They  are  a  fearful  lot  of  dubs,  Grizzy,"  he 
said,  meaning  the  laborers;  "the  worst  we've 
ever  drawn,  and  that  is  saying  a  good  deal. 
Three  drunken  brawls  last  night,  and  a  man 
killed  in  Haley's  Place.  And  I  can't  keep  liquor 
out  of  the  camp  to  save  my  soul — not  if  I  should 
sit  up  nights  to  invent  new  regulations.  The 
Navajos  are  the  best  of  the  bunch  and  we've 
managed  to  keep  the  fire  from  spreading  over  on 
their  side  of  the  Niquoia,  thus  far.  But  if  the 
whiskey  ever  gets  hold  in  the  tepees,  we'll  have 
orders  to  shoot  Chief  Nicagee's  people  back  to 
their  reservation  in  a  holy  minute." 

Grislow  nodded. 

"Niqoyastcadje  —  'Place-where-they-came-up.* 
It  will  be  'Place-where-they-go-down'  if  the  tin- 
horns and  boot-leggers  get  an  inning." 

"We'll  all  go  to  the  devil  on  a  toboggan-slide 
and  there  is  the  order  for  it,"  declared  the  chief 
morosely,  again  indicating  the  letter  from  Wash- 
ington. "That  means  more  human  scum — a  new 
town — an  element  that  we  can  neither  chase  out 
nor  control.  Cortwright  and  his  associates,  who- 
ever they  are,  won't  care  a  rotten  hang.  They'll 
be  here  to  sweat  money  out  of  the  job;  to  sweat 
it  in  any  and  every  way  that  offers,  and  to  do  it 
quick.     All  of  which  is  bad  enough,  you'd  say, 

56 


Sands  of  Pactolus 

Murray;  but  it  isn't  the  worst  of  it.  I've  just 
run  up  against  another  thing  that  is  threatening 
to  raise  merry  hell  in  this  valley." 

"I  know,"  said  the  hydrographer  slowly. 
"You've  been  having  a  seance  with  Steve  Mas- 
singale.     Leshington  told  me  about  it." 

"What  did  he  tell  you?"  Brouillard  demanded 
half-angrily. 

"Oh,  nothing  much;  nothing  to  make  you  hot 
at  him.  He  happened  to  be  in  the  other  room 
when  Massingale  was  here,  and  the  door  was 
open.  He  said  he  gathered  the  notion  that  the 
young  sorehead  was  trying  to  bully  you." 

"He  was,"  was  the  brittle  admission.  "See 
here,  Grizzy." 

The  thing  to  be  seen  was  a  small  buckskin  bag 
which,  when  opened,  gave  up  a  paper  packet 
folded  like  a  medicine  powder.  The  paper  con- 
tained a  spoonful  of  dust  and  pellets  of  metal  of 
a  dull  yellow  lustre. 

The  hydrographer  drew  a  long  breath  and  fin- 
gered the  nuggets.  "Gold — placer  gold!"  he  ex- 
claimed, and  Brouillard  nodded  and  went  on  to 
tell  how  he  had  come  by  the  bag  and  its  contents. 

"Massingale  had  an  axe  to  grind,  of  course. 
You  may  remicmber  that  Harding  talked  loosely 
about  the  Massingale  opposition  to  the  building 

57 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

of  the  dam.  There  was  nothing  in  it.  The  op- 
position was  purely  personal  and  it  was  directed 
against  Harding  himself,  with  Amy  Massingale 
for  the  exciting  cause." 

"That  girl? — the  elemental  brute!"  Grislow 
broke  in  warmly.  He  knew  the  miner's  daughter 
fairly  well  by  this  time  and,  in  common  with 
every  other  man  on  the  staff,  not  excepting  the 
staff's  chief,  would  have  fought  for  her  in  any 
cause. 

Brouillard  nodded.  "I  don't  know  what  Hard- 
ing did,  but  Smith,  the  Triangle-Circle  foreman, 
tells  me  that  Steve  was  on  the  war-path;  he  told 
Harding  when  he  left,  last  summer,  that  if  he 
ever  came  back  to  the  Niquoia,  he'd  come  to 
stay — and  stay  dead." 

"I  never  did  like  Harding's  sex  attitude  any 
too  well,"  was  the  hydrographer's  definitive  com- 
ment; and  Brouillard  went  back  to  the  matter  of 
the  morning's  seance  and  its  golden  outcome. 

"That  is  only  a  little  side  issue.  Steve  Mas- 
singale came  to  me  this  morning  with  a  proposal 
that  was  about  as  cold-blooded  as  a  slap  in  the 
face.  Naturally,  for  good  business  reasons  of 
their  own,  the  Massingales  want  to  see  the  rail- 
road built  over  War  Arrow  Pass  and  into  the 
Niquoia.     In  some  way  Steve  has  found  out  that 

58 


Sands  of  Pactolus 

I  stand  In  pretty  well  with  President  Ford  and 
the  Pacific  Southwestern  people.  His  first  break 
was  to  offer  to  incorporate  the  *  Little  Susan'  and 
to  give  me  a  block  of  the  stock  if  I'd  pull  Ford's 
leg  on  the  Extension  proposition." 

*'Well?"  queried  Grislow.  "The  railroad  over 
War  Arrow  Pass  would  be  the  biggest  thing  that 
ever  happened  for  our  job  here.  If  it  did  nothing 
else,  it  would  make  us  independent  of  these  boom- 
ers that  are  coming  in  to  sell  us  material  at  their 
own  prices." 

"  Exactly.  But  my  hands  are  tied ;  and,  besides, 
Massingale's  offer  was  a  rank  bribe.  You  can 
imagine  what  I  told  him — that  I  could  neither 
accept  stock  in  his  mine  nor  say  anything  to  in- 
fluence the  railroad  people;  that  my  position  as 
chief  engineer  for  the  government  cut  me  out 
both  ways.  Then  he  began  to  bully  and  pulled 
the  club  on  me." 

Again  Grislow's  smile  was  jocose. 

"You  haven't  been  tumbling  into  the  ditch  with 
Leshington  and  Griffith  and  the  rest  of  us  and 
making  love  to  the  little  sister,  have  you?"  he 
jested. 

"Don't  be  a  fool  if  you  can  help  it,"  was  the 
curt  rejoinder.  "And  don't  give  yourself  leave 
to  say  things  like  that  about  Amy  Massingale. 

59 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

She  is  too  good  and  sweet  and  clean-hearted  to  be 
dragged  into  this  mix-up,  even  by  impHcation. 
Do  you  get  that,  Murray?" 

"Oh,  yes;  it's  only  another  way  of  saying  that 
I'm  one  of  the  fools.  Go  on  with  the  Stephen 
end  of  it." 

"Well,  when  I  turned  him  down,  young  Mas- 
singale  began  to  bluster  and  to  say  that  I'd  have 
to  boost  the  railroad  deal,  whether  I  wanted  to 
or  not.  I  told  him  he  couldn't  prove  it,  and  he 
said  he  would  show  me,  if  I'd  take  half  an  hour's 
walk  up  the  valley  with  him.  I  humored  him, 
more  to  get  quit  of  him  than  for  any  other  reason, 
and  on  the  way  past  the  camp  he  borrowed  a 
frying-pan  at  one  of  the  cook  shacks.  You  know 
that  long,  narrow  sand-bar  in  the  river  just  below 
the  mouth  of  the  upper  canyon.?" 

Grislow  nodded. 

"That  is  where  we  went  for  the  proof.  Mas- 
singale  dipped  up  a  panful  of  the  bar  sand,  which 
he  asked  me  to  wash  out  for  myself.  I  did  it,  and 
you  have  the  results  there  in  that  paper.  That 
bar  is  comparatively  rich  placer  dirt." 

"Good  Lord!"  ejaculated  the  map-maker. 
"Comparatively  rich,  you  say? — and  you  washed 
this  spoonful  out  of  a  single  pan?" 

"Keep    your    head,"    said    Brouillard    coolly. 
60 


Sands  of  Pactolus 

*'Massingale  explained  that  I  had  happened  to 
make  a  ten-strike;  that  the  bar  wasn't  any  such 
bonanza  as  that  first  result  would  indicate.  I 
proved  that,  too,  by  washing  some  more  of  it 
without  getting  any  more  than  a  few  'colors.' 
But  the  fact  remains:    it's  placer  ground." 

It  was  at  this  point  that  the  larger  aspect  of  the 
fact  launched  itself  upon  the  hydrographer. 

"A  gold  strike!"  he  gasped.  "And  we — we're 
planning  to  drown  it  under  two  hundred  feet  of 
a  lake!" 

Brouillard's  laugh  was  harsh. 

"Don't  let  the  fever  get  hold  of  you,  Grislow. 
Don't  forget  that  we  are  here  to  carry  out  the 
plans  of  the  Reclamation  Service — which  are  more 
far-reaching  and  of  a  good  bit  greater  conse- 
quence than  a  dozen  placer-mines.  Not  that  it 
didn't  make  me  grab  for  hand-holds  for  a  minute 
or  two,  mind  you.  I  wasn't  quite  as  cold  about 
it  as  I'm  asking  you  to  be,  and  I  guess  Massingale 
had  calculated  pretty  carefully  on  the  dramatic 
effect  of  his  little  shock.  Anyway,  he  drove  the 
peg  down  good  and  hard.  If  I  would  jump  in 
and  pull  every  possible  string  to  hurry  the  rail- 
road over  the  range,  and  keep  on  pulling  them, 
the  secret  of  the  placer  bar  would  remain  a  secret. 
Otherwise    he,    Stephen    Massingale,    would    give 

6i 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

it  away,  publish  it,  advertise  it  to  the  world. 
You  know  what  that  would  mean  for  us,  Mur- 
ray. 

"My  Lord!  I  should  say  so!  We'd  have 
Boomtown-on-the-pike  right  now,  with  all  the 
variations!  Every  white  man  in  the  camp  would 
chuck  his  job  in  the  hollow  half  of  a  minute  and 
go  to  gravel  washing!" 

"That's  it  precisely,"  Brouillard  acquiesced 
gloomily.  "Massingale  is  a  young  tough,  but  he 
is  shrewd  enough,  when  he  is  sober.  He  had  me 
dead  to  rights,  and  he  knew  it.  'You  don't 
want  any  gold  camp  starting  up  here  in  the  bot- 
tom of  your  reservoir,'  he  said;  and  I  had  to 
admit  it." 

Grislow  had  found  a  magnifying-glass  in  the 
drawer  of  the  mapping  table,  and  he  was  holding 
it  in  focus  over  the  small  collection  of  grain  gold 
and  nuggets.  In  the  midst  of  the  eager  examina- 
tion he  looked  up  suddenly  to  say:  "Hold  on  a 
minute.  Why  is  Steve  proposing  to  give  this 
thing  away?  Why  isn't  he  working  the  bar  him- 
self?" 

"He  explained  that  phase  of  it,  after  a  fashion — 
said  that  placer-mining  was  al\vays  more  or  less 
of  a  gamble  and  that  they  had  a  sure  thing  of  it 
in  the  'Little  Susan.'     Of  course,  if  the  thing  had 

62 


Sands  of  Pactolus 

to  be  given  away,  he  and  his  father  would  avail 
themselves  of  their  rights  as  discoverers  and  take 
their  chance  with  the  crowd  for  the  sake  of  the 
ready  money  they  might  get  out  of  it.  Other- 
wise they'd  be  content  to  let  it  alone  and  stick 
to  their  legitimate  business,  which  is  quartz- 
m.ining." 

"And  to  do  that  successfully  they've  got  to 
have  the  railroad.  Say,  Victor,  I'm  beginning  to 
acquire  a  great  and  growing  respect  for  Mr. 
Stephen  Massingale.  This  field  is  too  small  for 
him;  altogether  too  small.  He  ought  to  get  a 
job  with  some  of  the  malefactors  of  great  wealth. 
How  did  you  settle  it  finally.?" 

*' Massingale  was  too  shrewd  to  try  to  push  me 
over  the  edge  while  there  seemed  to  be  a  fairly 
good  chance  that  I  would  walk  over  of  my  own 
accord.  He  told  me  to  take  a  week  or  two  and 
think  about  it.  We  dropped  the  matter  by  com- 
mon consent  after  we  left  the  bar  in  the  Quad- 
jenai  bend,  and  on  the  way  down  the  valley 
Massingale  pitched  in  a  bit  of  information  out 
Df  what  seemed  to  be  sheer  good-will.  It  seems 
that  he  and  his  father  have  done  a  lot  of  test 
drilling  up  and  down  the  side  of  Chigringo  at  one 
time  and  another,  and  he  told  me  that  there  is  a 
bed  of  micaceous  shale  under  our  south  anchorage, 

63 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

cautioning  me  not  to  let  the  excavation  stop  until 
we  had  gone  through  it." 

"Well!     That  was  pretty  decent  of  him." 

"Yes;  and  it  shows  that  Harding  was  lying 
when  he  said  that  the  Massingales  were  opposing 
the  reclamation  project.  They  are  frankly  in 
favor  of  it.  Irrigation  in  the  Buckskin  means 
population;  and  population  will  bring  the  rail- 
road, sooner  or  later.  In  the  matter  of  hurry- 
ing the  track-laying,  Massingale  is  only  adopting 
modern  business  methods.  He  has  a  club  and  he 
is  using  it." 

Grislow  was  biting  the  end  of  his  penholder 
thoughtfully. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it,  Victor?" 
he  asked  at  length.  "We  can't  stand  for  any 
more  chaos  than  the  gods  have  already  doped  out 
for  us,  can  we?" 

Brouillard  took  another  long  minute  at  the 
office  window  before  he  said:  "What  would  you 
do  if  you  were  in  my  place,  Murray?" 

But  at  this  the  map-maker  put  up  his  hands 
as  if  to  ward  off  a  blow. 

"No,  you  don't!"  he  laughed.  "I  can  at  least 
refuse  to  be  that  kind  of  a  fool.  Go  and  hunt 
you  a  professional  conscience  keeper;  I  went  out 
of  that  business  for  keeps  in  my  sophomore  year. 

64 


Sands  of  Pactolus 

But  I'll  venture  a  small  prophecy:  We'll  have  the 
railroad — and  you'll  pull  for  it.  And  then,  whether 
Massingale  tells  or  doesn't  tell,  the  golden  secret 
will  leak  out.     And  after  that,  the  deluge." 


65 


IV 

A  Fire  of  Little  Sticks 

TWO  days  after  the  arrival  of  the  letter  from 
Washington  announcing  the  approaching 
invasion  of  private  capital,  Brouillard,  returning 
from  a  horseback  trip  into  the  Buckskin,  where 
Anson  and  Griffith  were  setting  grade  stakes  for 
the  canal  diggers,  found  a  visitor  awaiting  him 
in  the  camp  headquarters  office. 

One  glance  at  the  thick-bodied,  heavy-faced 
man  chewing  an  extinct  cigar  while  he  made  him- 
self comfortable  in  the  only  approach  to  a  loung- 
ing chair  that  the  office  afforded  was  sufficient 
to  awaken  an  alert  antagonism.  Quick  to  found 
friendships  or  enmities  upon  the  intuitive  first  im- 
pression, Brouillard's  acknowledgment  was  curt 
and  business-brusque  when  the  big  man  intro- 
duced himself  without  taking  the  trouble  to  get 
out  of  his  chair. 

"My  name  is  Hosford  and  I  represent  the  Ni- 
quoia  Improvement  Company  as  its  manager 
and  resident  engineer,"  said  the  lounger,  shifting 

66 


A  Fire  of  Little  Sticks 

the  dead  cigar  from  one  corner  of  his  hard-bitted 
mouth  to  the  other.  "You're  Brillard,  the  gov- 
ernment man,  I  take  it?" 

"Brouillard,  if  you  please,"  was  the  crisp  cor- 
rection. And  then  with  a  careful  efFacement  of 
the  final  saving  trace  of  hospitality  in  tone  or 
manner:  "What  can  we  do  for  you,  Mr.  Hos- 
ford?" 

"A  good  many  things,  first  and  last.  I'm  two 
or  three  days  ahead  of  my  outfit,  and  you  can 
put  me  up  somewhere  until  I  get  a  camp  of  my 
own.  You've  got  some  sort  of  an  engineers' 
mess,  I  take  it?" 

"We  have,"  said  Brouillard  briefly.  With 
Anson  and  Griffith  absent  on  the  field-work,  there 
were  two  vacancies  in  the  staflF  mess.  Moreover, 
the  law  of  the  desert  prescribes  that  not  even  an 
enemy  shall  be  refused  bread  and  bed.  "You'll 
make  yourself  at  home  with  us,  of  course,"  he 
added,  and  he  tried  to  say  it  without  making  it 
sound  too  much  Hke  a  challenge. 

"All  right;  so  much  for  that  part  of  it,"  said 
the  self-invited  guest.  "Now  for  the  business 
end  of  the  deal — why  don't  you  sit  down?" 

Brouillard  planted  himself  behind  his  desk  and 
began  to  fill  his  blackened  office  pipe,  coldly  re- 
fusing Hosford's  tender  of  a  cigar. 

(>7 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"You  were  speaking  of  the  business  matter," 
he  suggested  bluntly. 

*'Yes.  I'd  like  to  go  over  your  plans  for  the 
power  dam  in  the  upper  canyon.  If  they  look 
good  to  me  I'll  adopt  them." 

Brouillard  paused  to  light  his  pipe  before  he 
replied. 

"Perhaps  we'd  better  clear  away  the  under- 
brush before  we  begin  on  the  standing  timber,  Mr. 
Hosford,"  he  said,  when  the  tobacco  was  glowing 
mihtantly  in  the  pipe  bowl.  "Have  you  been 
given  to  understand  that  this  office  is  in  any  sense 
a  tail  to  your  Improvement  Company's  kite?" 

"I  haven't  been  'given  to  understand'  any- 
thing," was  the  gruff  rejoinder.  "Our  company 
has  acquired  certain  rights  in  this  valley,  and 
I'm  taking  it  for  granted  that  you've  had  the 
situation  doped  out  to  you.  It  won't  be  worth 
your  while  to  quarrel  with  us,  Mr.  Brouillard." 

"I  am  very  far  from  wishing  to  quarrel  with 
anybody,"  said  Brouillard,  but  his  tone  belied 
the  words.  "At  the  same  time,  if  you  think  that 
we  are  going  to  do  your  engineering  work,  or 
any  part  of  it,  for  you,  you  are  pretty  severely 
mistaken.  Our  own  job  is  fully  big  enough  to 
keep  us  busy." 

"You're  off,"  said  the  big  man  coolly.  "Some- 
68 


A  Fire  of  Little  Sticks 

body  has  bungled  in  giving  you  the  dope.     You 
want  to  keep  your  job,  don't  you?" 

"That  is  neither  here  nor  there.  What  we 
are  discussing  at  present  is  the  department's  atti- 
tude toward  your  enterprise.  I  shall  be  exceeding 
my  instructions  if  I  make  that  attitude  friendly 
to  the  detriment  of  my  own  work." 

The  new  resident  manager  sat  back  in  his  chair 
and  chewed  his  cigar  reflectively,  staring  up  at 
the  log  beaming  of  the  office  ceiling.  When  he 
began  again  he  did  not  seem  to  think  it  worth 
while  to  shift  his  gaze  from  the  abstractions. 

"You're  just  like  all  the  other  government  men 
I've  ever  had  to  do  business  with,  Brouillard; 
pig-headed,  obstinate,  bhnd  as  bats  to  their  own 
interests.  I  didn't  especially  want  to  begin  by 
knocking  you  into  Une,  but  I  guess  it'll  have  to 
be  done.  In  the  first  place,  let  me  tell  you  that 
there  are  all  kinds  of  big  money  behind  this  little 
sky-rocket  of  ours  here  in  the  Niquoia:  ten  mil- 
lions, twenty  milUons,  thirty  millions,  if  they're 
needed." 

Brouillard  shook  his  head.  "I  can't  count  be- 
yond a  hundred,  Mr.  Hosford." 

"All  right;  then  I'll  get  you  on  the  other  side. 
Suppose  I  should  tell  you  that  practically  all  of 
your  bosses  are  in  with  us;   what  then?" 

69 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"Your  stockholders'  listings  concern  me  even 
less  than  your  capitalization.  We  are  miles  apart 
yet. 

Again  the  representative  of  Niquoia  Improve- 
ment took  time  to  shift  the  extinct  cigar. 

"I  guess  the  best  way  to  get  you  is  to  send  a 
little  wire  to  Washington,"  he  said  reflectively. 
*'How  does  that  strike  you?" 

"I  haven't  the  slightest  interest  in  what  you 
may  do  or  fail  to  do,"  said  Brouillard.  "At  the 
same  time,  as  I  have  already  said,  I  don't  wish  to 
quarrel  with  you  or  with  your  company." 

"Ah!  that  touched  you,  didn't  it?" 

"Not  in  the  sense  you  are  imagining;  no.  Send 
your  wire  if  you  like.  You  may  have  the  use  of 
the  government  telegraph.  The  ojffice  is  in  the 
second  shack  north  of  this." 

"Still  you  say  you  don't  want  to  scrap?'* 

"Certainly  not.  As  you  have  intimated,  we 
shall  have  to  do  business  together  as  buyer  and 
seller.  I  merely  wished  to  make  it  plain  that  the 
Reclamation  Service  doesn't  put  its  engineering 
department  at  the  disposal  of  the  Niquoia  Im- 
provement Company." 

"But  you  have  made  the  plans  for  this  power 
plant,  haven't  you?" 

"Yes;  and  they  are  the  property  of  the  depart- 
70 


A  Fire  of  Little  Sticks 

ment.  If  you  want  them,  I'll  turn  them  over  to 
you  upon  a  proper  order  from  headquarters." 

"That's  a  little  more  like  it.  Where  did  you 
say  I'd  find  your  wire  office?" 

Brouillard  gave  the  information  a  second  time, 
and  as  Hosford  went  out,  Grislow  came  in  and 
took  his  place  at  the  mapping  table. 

"Glad  you  got  back  in  time  to  save  my  life," 
he  remarked  pointedly,  with  a  sly  glance  at  his 
chief.  "He's  been  ploughing  furrows  up  and  down 
my  little  potato  patch  all  day." 

"Humph!  Digging  for  information,  I  sup- 
pose?" grunted  Brouillard. 

"Just  that;  and  he's  been  getting  it,  too.  Not 
out  of  me,  particularly,  but  out  of  everybody. 
Also,  he  was  willing  to  impart  a  little.  We're  in 
for  the  time  of  our  lives,  Victor." 

"I  know  it,"  was  the  crabbed  rejoinder. 

"You  don't  know  the  tenth  part  of  it,"  as- 
serted the  hydrographer  slowly.  "It's  a  modest 
name,  'The  Niquoia  Improvement  Company,' 
but  it  is  going  to  be  like  charity — covering  a 
multitude  of  sins.  Do  you  know  what  that 
plank-faced  organizer  has  got  up  his  sleeve?  He 
is  going  to  build  us  a  neat,  up-to-date  little  city 
right  here  in  the  middle  of  our  midst.  If  I  hadn't 
made  him  believe  that  I  was  only  a  draughtsman, 

71 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

he  would  have  had  me  out  with  a  transit,  running 
the  Hnes  for  the  streets." 

"A  city? — in  this  reservoir  bottom?  I  guess 
not.  He  was  only  stringing  you  to  kill  time, 
Grizzy." 

"Don't  you  fool  yourself!"  exclaimed  the  map- 
maker.  "He's  got  the  plans  in  his  grip.  We're 
going  to  be  on  a  little  reservation  set  apart  for 
us  by  the  grace  of  God  and  the  kindness  of  these 
promoters.  The  remainder  of  the  valley  is  laid 
off  into  cute  little  squares  and  streets,  with  every- 
thing named  and  numbered,  ready  to  be  listed  in 
the  brokers'  offices.  You  may  not  be  aware  of 
it,  but  this  palatial  office  building  of  ours  fronts 
on  Chigringo  Avenue." 

"Stuff!"  said  Brouillard.  "What  has  all  this 
bubble  blowing  got  to  do  with  the  building  of  a 
temporary  power  dam  and  the  setting  up  of  a 
couple  of  cement  kilns?" 

Grislow  laid  his  pen  aside  and  whirled  around 
on  his  working-stool. 

"Don't  you  make  any  easy-going  mistake, 
Victor,"  he  said  earnestly.  "The  cement  and 
power  proposition  is  only  a  side  issue.  These  new 
people  are  going  to  take  over  the  sawmills,  open 
up  quarries,  build  a  stub  railroad  to  the  Hophra 
mines,  grade  a  practicable  stage  road  over  the 

72 


A  Fire  of  Little  Sticks 

range  to  Quesado,  and  put  on  a  fast-mule  freight 
line  to  serve  until  the  railroad  builds  in.  Wouldn't 
that  set  your  teeth  on  edge?" 

"I  can't  beheve  it,  Murray.  It's  a  leaf  out  of 
the  book  of  Bedlam!  Take  a  fair  shot  at  it  and 
see  where  the  bullet  lands:  this  entire  crazy  fake 
is  built  upon  one  solitary,  lonesome  fact — the  fact 
that  we're  here,  with  a  job  on  our  hands  big  enough 
to  create  an  active,  present-moment  market  for 
labor  and  material.  There  is  absolutely  nothing 
else  behind  the  bubble  blowing;  if  we  were  not 
here  the  Niquoia  Improvement  Company  would 
never  have  been  heard  of!" 

Grislow  laughed.  "Your  arguing  that  twice 
two  makes  four  doesn't  change  the  iridescent  hue 
of  the  bubble,"  he  volunteered.  "If  big  money 
has  seen  a  chance  to  skin  somebody,  the  mere 
fact  that  the  end  of  the  world  is  due  to  come  along 
down  the  pike  some  day  isn't  going  to  cut  any 
obstructing  figure.  We'll  all  be  buying  and  sell- 
ing corner  lots  in  Hosford's  new  city  before  we're 
a  month  older.     Don't  you  believe  it?" 

"I'll  believe  it  when  I  see  it,"  was  Brouillard's 
reply;  and  with  this  the  matter  rested  for  the 
moment. 

It  was  later  in  the  day,  an  hour  or  so  after  the 
serving  of  the   hearty   supper   in  the   engineers' 

73 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

mess  tent,  that  Brouillard  was  given  to  see  an- 
other and  still  less  tolerable  side  of  his  temporary- 
guest.  Hosford  had  come  into  the  office  to  plant 
himself  solidly  in  the  makeshift  easy-chair  for  the 
smoking  of  a  big,  black,  after-supper  cigar. 

''I've  been  looking  over  your  rules  and  reg- 
ulations, Brouillard,"  he  began,  after  an  interval 
of  silence  which  Brouillard  had  been  careful  not 
to  break.  "You're  making  a  capital  mistake  in 
trying  to  transplant  the  old  Connecticut  blue 
laws  out  here.  Your  working-men  ought  to  have 
the  right  to  spend  their  money  in  any  way  that 
suits  'em." 

Brouillard  was  pointedly  occupying  himself  at 
his  desk,  but  he  looked  up  long  enough  to  say: 
"Whiskey,  you  mean?" 

"That  and  other  things.  They  tell  me  that  you 
don't  allow  any  open  gambling,  or  any  women 
here  outside  of  the  families  of  the  workmen." 

"We  don't,"  was  the  short  rejoinder. 

"That  won't  hold  water  after  we  get  things 
fairly  in  motion." 

"It  will  have  to  hold  water,  so  far  as  we  are 
concerned,  if  I  have  to  build  a  stockade  around 
the  camp,"  snapped  Brouillard. 

Hosford's  heavy  face  wrinkled  itself  in  a  mirth- 
less smile.    "You're  nutty,"  he  remarked.    "When 

74 


A  Fire  of  Little  Sticks 

I  find  a  man  bearing  down  hard  on  all  the  little 
vices,  it  always  makes  me  wonder  what's  the 
name  of  the  corking  big  one  he  is  trying  to  cover 
up. 

Since  there  was  obviously  no  peaceful  reply  to 
be  made  to  this,  Brouillard  bent  lower  over  his 
work  and  said  nothing.  At  every  fresh  step  in 
the  forced  acquaintance  the  new-comer  was  pains- 
takingly developing  new  antagonisms.  Sooner  or 
later,  Brouillard  knew,  it  would  come  to  an  open 
rupture,  but  he  was  hoping  that  the  actual  hos- 
tilities could  be  postponed  until  after  Hosford  had 
worn  out  his  temporary  welcome  as  a  guest  in 
the  engineers'  mess. 

For  a  time  the  big  man  in  the  easy-chair  smoked 
on  in  silence.     Then  he  began  again: 

"Say,  Brouillard,  I  saw  one  little  girl  to-day 
that  didn't  belong  to  your  workmen's-family  out- 
fit, and  she's  a  peach;  came  riding  down  the  trail 
with  her  brother  from  that  mine  up  on  the  south 
mountain — Massingale's,  isn't  it?  By  Jove!  she 
fairly  made  my  mouth  water!" 

Inasmuch  as  no  man  can  read  field-notes  when 
the  page  has  suddenly  become  a  red  blur,  Brouil- 
lard looked  up. 

"You  are  my  guest,  in  a  way,  Mr.  Hosford;  for 
that   reason   I   can't   very  well  tell  you  what   I 

75 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

think  of  you."  So  much  he  was  able  to  say 
quietly.  Then  the  control  mechanism  burned 
out  in  a  flash  of  fiery  rage  and  he  cursed  the  guest 
fluently  and  comprehensively,  winding  up  with  a 
crude  and  savage  threat  of  dissection  and  dis- 
memberment if  he  should  ever  venture  so  much  as 
to  name  Miss  Massingale  again  in  the  threatener's 
hearing. 

Hosford  sat  up  slowly,  and  his  big  face  turned 
darkly  red. 

"Well,  I'll  be  damned!"  he  broke  out.  "So 
you're  that  kind  of  a  fire-eater,  are  you?  Lord, 
Lord!  I  didn't  suppose  anything  like  that  ever 
happened  outside  of  the  ten-cent  shockers.  Wake 
up,  man;  this  is  the  twentieth  century  we're  liv- 
ing in.     Don't  look  at  me  that  way!" 

But  the  wave  of  insane  wrath  was  already 
subsiding,  and  Brouillard,  half  ashamed  of  the 
momentary  lapse  into  savagery,  was  once  more 
scowling  down  at  the  pages  of  his  note-book. 
Further  along,  when  the  succeeding  silence  had 
been  undisturbed  for  five  full  minutes,  he  began 
to  realize  that  the  hot  Brouillard  temper,  which 
he  had  heretofore  been  able  to  keep  within  pru- 
dent bounds,  had  latterly  been  growing  more  and 
more  rebellious.  He  could  no  longer  be  sure  of 
what  he  would  say  or  do  under  sudden  provoca- 

76 


A  Fire  of  Little  Sticks 

tion.  True,  he  argued,  the  provocation  in  the 
present  instance  had  been  sufficiently  maddening; 
but  there  had  been  other  upflashings  of  the  mur- 
derous inner  fire  with  less  to  excuse  them. 

Hosford  finished  his  cigar,  and  when  he  tossed 
the  butt  out  through  the  opened  window,  Brouil- 
lard  hoped  he  was  going.  But  the  promoter- 
manager  made  no  move  other  than  to  take  a 
fresh  cigar  from  his  pocket  case  and  Hght  it. 
Brouillard  worked  on  silently,  ignoring  the  big 
figure  in  the  easy-chair  by  the  window,  and  striv- 
ing to  regain  his  lost  equilibrium.  To  have  shown 
Hosford  the  weakness  of  the  control  barriers  was 
bad  enough,  but  to  have  pointed  out  the  exact 
spot  at  which  they  were  most  easily  assailable 
was  worse.  He  thought  it  would  be  singular  if 
Hosford  should  not  remember  how  and  where  to 
strike  when  the  real  conflict  should  begin,  and  he 
was  properly  humiliated  by  the  reflection  that  he 
had  rashly  given  the  enemy  an  advantage. 

He  was  calling  Hosford  "the  enemy"  now  and 
making  no  ameliorating  reservations.  That  the 
plans  of  the  boomers  would  speedily  breed  chaos, 
and  bring  the  blight  of  disorder  and  lawlessness 
upon  the  Niquoia  project  and  everything  con- 
nected with  it,  he  made  no  manner  of  doubt. 
How  was  he  to  hold  a  camp  of  several  hundred 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

men  in  decent  subjection  if  the  temptations  and 
allurements  of  a  boomers'  city  were  to  be  brought 
in  and  set  down  within  arm's  reach  of  the  work 
on  the  dam?  It  seemed  blankly  incredible  that 
the  department  heads  in  Washington  should  sanc- 
tion such  an  invasion  if  they  knew  the  full  mean- 
ing of  it. 

The  "if"  gave  him  an  idea.  What  if  the  boom- 
ers were  taking  an  unauthorized  ell  for  their  au- 
thorized inch?  He  had  taken  a  telegraph  pad 
from  the  desk  stationery  rack  and  was  com- 
posing his  message  of  inquiry  when  the  door 
opened  and  Quinlan,  the  operator,  came  in  with 
a  communication  fresh  from  the  Washington  wire. 
The  message  was  an  indirect  reply  to  Hosford's 
telegraphed  appeal  to  the  higher  powers.  Brouil- 
lard  read  it,  stuck  it  upon  the  file,  and  took  a  roll 
of  blue-prints  from  the  bottom  drawer  of  his  desk. 

"Here  are  the  drawings  for  your  power  instal- 
lation, Mr.  Hosford,"  he  said,  handing  the  roll 
to  the  man  in  the  chair.  And  a  little  later  he 
went  out  to  smoke  a  pipe  in  the  open  air,  leaving 
the  message  of  inquiry  unwritten. 


78 


V 

Symptomatic 

FOR  some  few  minutes  after  the  gray-bearded, 
absent-eyed  old  man  who  had  been  working 
at  the  mine  forge  had  disappeared  in  the  depths 
of  the  tunnel  upon  finishing  his  job  of  drill  point- 
ing, the  two  on  the  cabin  porch  made  no  attempt 
to  resume  the  talk  which  had  been  broken  by  the 
blacksmithing.  But  when  the  rumbhng  thunder 
of  the  ore-car  which  the  elder  Massingale  was 
pushing  ahead  of  him  into  the  mine  had  died 
away  in  the  subterranean  distances  Brouillard  be- 
gan again. 

"I  do  get  your  point  of  view — sometimes,"  he 
said.  "Or  perhaps  it  would  be  nearer  the  truth 
to  say  that  I  have  had  it  now  and  then  in  times 
past.  CiviUzation,  or  what  stands  for  it,  does 
have  a  way  of  shrinking  into  littleness,  not  to  say 
cheapness,  when  one  can  get  the  proper  perspec- 
tive. And  your  life  up  here  on  Chigringo  has 
given  you  the  needful  detached  point  of  view." 

The  trouble  shadows  in  the  eyes  of  the  young 

79 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

woman  who  was  sitting  in  the  fish-net  hammock 
gave  place  to  a  smile  of  gentle  derision. 

"Do  you  call  that  civilization?"  she  demanded, 
indicating  the  straggling  new  town  spreading  it- 
self, map-like,  in  the  valley  below. 

"I  suppose  it  is — one  form  of  it.  At  least  it 
is  civiHzation  in  the  making.  Everything  has  to 
have  some  sort  of  a  beginning." 

Miss  Massingale  acquiesced  in  a  little  uptilt  of 
her  perfectly  rounded  chin. 

"Just  the  same,  you  don't  pretend  to  say  that 
you  are  enjoying  it,"  she  said  in  manifest  depre- 
cation. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  My  work  is  down  there, 
and  a  camp  is  a  necessary  factor  in  it.  You'd  say 
that  the  more  civilized  the  surroundings  become, 
the  less  need  there  would  be  for  me  to  sit  up 
nights  to  keep  the  lid  on.  That  would  be  the 
reasonable  conclusion,  wouldn't  it?" 

"If  you  were  really  trying  to  make  the  fact  fit 
the  theory — which  you  are  not — it  would  be  a 
sheer,  self-centred  eye-shutting  to  all  the  greater 
things  that  may  be  involved,"  she  continued. 
"Don't  you  ever  get  beyond  that?" 

"I  did  at  first.  When  I  learned  a  few  weeks 
ago  that  the  boomers  had  taken  hold  of  us  in 
earnest  and  that  we  were  due  to  acquire  a  real 

80 


Symptomatic 

town  with  all  the  trimmings,  I  was  righteously 
hot.  Apart  from  the  added  trouble  a  wide-open 
town  would  be  likely  to  give  us  in  maintaining 
order  in  the  camp,  it  seemed  so  crudely  unneces- 
sary to  start  a  pigeon-plucking  match  at  this  dis- 
tance from  Wall  Street." 

"But  now,"  she  queried — "now,  I  suppose,  you 
have  become  reconciled.^" 

"I  am  growing  more  philosophical,  let  us  say. 
There  are  just  about  so  many  pigeons  to  be 
plucked,  anyway;  they'd  moult  if  they  weren't 
plucked.  And  it  may  as  well  be  done  here  as  on 
the  Stock  Exchange,  when  you  come  to  think 
of  it." 

"I  like  you  least  when  you  talk  that  way," 
said  the  young  woman  in  the  hammock,  with 
open-eyed  frankness.  "Do  you  do  it  as  other 
men  do? — just  to  hear  how  it  sounds?" 

Brouillard,  sitting  on  the  top  step  of  the  porch, 
leaned  his  head  against  the  porch  post  and 
laughed. 

"You  know  too  much — a  lot  too  much  for 
a  person  of  your  tender  years,"  he  asserted. 
"Which  names  one  more  of  the  charming  collec- 
tion of  contradictions  which  your  father  or  mother 
or  somebody  had  the  temerity  to  label  'Amy/ 
sweetest  and  most  seraphic  of  diminutives." 

8i 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"If  you  don't  like  my  name — "  she  began,  and 
then  she  went  off  at  another  tangent.  "Please 
tell  me  why  I  am  a  'collection  of  contradictions.' 
Tig  never  says  anything  like  that  to  me." 

"'Tig,'  "  said  Brouillard,  "'Tig'  Smith.  Speak- 
ing of  names,  I've  often  wondered  how  on  earth 
our  breezy  friend  of  the  Tri'-Circ'  ever  got  such 
a  handle  as  that." 

"It's  his  own  name — or  a  part  of  it.  His  fa- 
ther was  a  country  preacher  back  in  Tennessee, 
and  I  imagine  he  had  the  Srnith  feeling  that  the 
surname  wasn't  very  distinctive.  So  he  named 
the  poor  boy  Tiglath-Pileser.  Just  the  same,  it 
is  not  to  laugh,"  she  went  on  in  friendly  loyalty. 
*'Tig  can't  help  his  name,  and,  anyway,  he's  the 
vastest  possible  improvement  on  those  old  As- 
syrian gentlemen  who  were  the  first  to  wear  it." 

Brouillard's  gaze  went  past  the  shapely  little 
figure  in  the  string  hammock  to  lose  itself  in  the 
far  Timanyoni  distances. 

"You  are  a  bundle  of  surprises,"  he  said,  let- 
ting the  musing  thought  slip  into  speech.  "What 
can  you  possibly  know  about  the  Assyrians.^" 

She  made  a  funny  little  grimace  at  him.  "It 
was  'contradictions'  a  moment  ago  and  now  it 
is  'surprises.'  Which  reminds  me,  you  haven't 
told  me  why  I  am  a  'collection.'  " 

82 


Symptomatic 

"I  think  you  know  well  enough,"  he  retorted. 
"The  first  time  I  saw  you — down  at  the  Nick- 
wire  ford  with  Tig,  you  remember — I  tried  to  re- 
call which  Madonna  it  is  that  has  your  mouth 
and  eyes." 

"Well,  did  you  succeed  in  placing  the  lady?" 

"No.  Somehow,  I  haven't  cared  to  since  I've 
come  to  know  you.  You're  different — always 
different,  and  then — oh,  well,  comparisons  are 
such  hopelessly  inadequate  things,  anyway,"  he 
finished  lamely. 

"You  are  not  getting  on  very  well  with  the 
'contradictions,'  "  she  demurred. 

"Oh,  I  can  catalogue  them  if  you  push  me  to 
it.  One  minute  you  are  the  Madonna  lady  that 
I  can't  recall,  calm,  reposeful,  truthful,  and  all 
that,  you  know — so  truthful  that  those  childlike 
eyes  of  yours  would  make  a  stuttering  imbecile 
of  the  man  who  should  come  to  you  with  a  lie 
in  his  mouth." 

"And  the  next  minute?"  she  prompted. 

"The  next  minute  you  are  a  witch,  laughing  at 
the  man's  little  weaknesses,  putting  your  finger 
on  them  as  accurately  as  if  you  could  read  his 
soul,  holding  them  up  to  your  ridicule  and — 
what's  much  worse — to  his  own.  At  such  times 
your    insight,  or   whatever   you    choose    to    call 

83 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

it,    is    enough    to    give   a   man    a   fit   of    'seeing 
things.'  " 

Her  laugh  was  Hke  a  school-girl's,  light-hearted, 
ringing,  deliciously  unrestrained. 

"What  a  picture!"  she  commented.  And  then: 
"I  can  draw  a  better  one  of  you.  Monsieur  Victor 
de  Brouillard." 

"Do  it,"  he  dared. 

"It'll  hurt  your  vanity." 
1  haven  t  any. 

"Oh,  but  you  have!  Don't  you  know  that  it 
is  only  the  very  vainest  people  who  say  that?" 

"Never  mind;    go  on  and  draw  your  picture." 

"Even  if  it  should  give  you  another  attack  of 
the  'seeing  things'?" 

"Yes;  I'll  chance  even  that." 

"Very  well,  then:  once  upon  a  time — it  was  a 
good  while  ago,  I'm  afraid — you  were  a  very  up- 
right young  man,  and  your  uprightness  made 
you  just  a  little  bit  austere — for  yourself,  if  not 
for  others.  At  that  time  you  were  busy  whittling 
out  heroic  little  ideals  and  making  idols  of  them; 
and  I  am  quite  sure  you  were  spelling  duty  with 
a  capital  'D'  and  that  you  would  have  been  prop- 
erly horrified  if  a  sister  of  yours  had  permitted  an 
unchaperoned  acquaintance  like — well,  like  ours." 

"Go  on,"  he  said,  neither  affirming  nor  denying. 

84 


Symptomatic 

"Also,  at  that  time  you  thought  that  a  man's 
work  in  the  world  was  the  biggest  thing  that 
ever  existed,  the  largest  possible  order  that  could 
be  given,  and  the  work  and  everything  about  it 
had  to  be  transparently  honest  and  openly  above- 
board.  You  would  cheerfully  have  died  for  a  prin- 
ciple in  those  days,  and  you  would  have  allowed 
the  enemy  to  cut  you  up  into  cunning  Httle  inch 
cubes  before  you  would  have  admitted  that  any 
pigeon  was  ever  made  to  be  plucked." 

He  was  smiling  mirthlessly,  with  the  black  mus- 
taches taking  the  sardonic  upcurve. 

"Then  what  happened.^" 

"One  of  two  things,  or  maybe  both  of  them. 
You  were  pushed  out  into  the  life  race  with  some 
sort  of  a  handicap.  I  don't  know  what  it  was — 
or  is.     Is  that  true?" 

"Yes." 

"Then  I'll  hazard  the  other  guess.  You  dis- 
covered that  there  were  women  in  the  world  and 
that  there  was  something  in  you,  or  about  you, 
that  was  sufficiently  attractive  to  make  them  sit 
up  and  be  nice  to  you.  For  some  reason — per- 
haps it  was  the  handicap — you  thought  you'd  be 
safer  in  the  unwomaned  wilderness  and  so  you 
came  out  here  to  the  'wild  and  woolly.'  But  even 
here  you're  not  safe.     There  is  a  passable  trail 

85 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

over  War  Arrow  Pass  and  at  a  pinch  an  auto- 
mobile can  cross  the  Buckskin." 

When  she  stopped  he  nodded  gravely.  "It  is 
all  true  enough.  You  haven't  added  anything 
more  than  a  graceful  little  touch  here  and  there. 
Who  has  been  telling  you  all  these  things  about 
me.'^ 

She  clapped  her  hands  in  delighted  self-applause. 

"You  don't  deny  them.^" 

"I  wouldn't  be  so  impolite." 

In  the  turning  of  a  leaf  her  mood  changed  and 
the  wide-open,  fearless  eyes  were  challenging  him 
soberly. 

"You  cant  deny  them." 

He  tried  to  break  away  from  the  level-eyed,  ac- 
cusing gaze — tried  and  found  it  impossible. 

"I  asked  you  who  has  been  gossiping  about 
me;  not  Grizzy?" 

"No,  not  Murray  Grislow;  it  was  the  man  you 
think  you  know  best  in  all  the  world — who  is 
also  the  one  you  probably  know  the  least — ^your- 
self." 

"Good  Heavens!  am  I  really  such  a  transparent 
egoist  as  all  that?" 

"All  men  are  egoists,"  she  answered  calmly.  "In 
some  the  ego  is  sound  and  clear-eyed  and  strong; 
in  others  it  is  weak — in  the  same  way  that  pas- 

86 


Symptomatic 

sion  is  weak;  it  will  sacrifice  all  it  has  or  hopes  to 
have  in  some  sudden  fury  of  self-assertion." 

She  sat  up  and  put  her  hands  to  her  hair,  and 
he  was  free  to  look  away,  down  upon  the  great 
ditch  where  the  endless  chain  of  concrete  buckets 
linked  itself  to  the  overhead  carrier  like  a  string 
of  mechanical  insects,  each  with  its  pinch  of  mate- 
rial to  add  to  the  deep  and  wide-spread  founda- 
tions of  the  dam.  Across  the  river  a  group  of 
hidden  sawmills  sent  their  raucous  song  like  the 
high-pitched  shrilling  of  distant  locusts  to  trem- 
ble upon  the  still  air  of  the  afternoon.  In  the 
middle  distance  the  camp-town  city,  growing  now 
by  leaps  and  bounds,  spread  its  roughly  indicated 
streets  over  the  valley  level,  the  yellow  shingled 
roofs  of  the  new  structures  figuring  as  patches  of 
vivid  paint  under  the  slanting  rays  of  the  sun. 
Far  away  to  the  right  the  dark-green  liftings  of 
the  Quadjenai  Hills  cut  across  from  mountain  to 
river;  at  the  foot  of  the  ridge  the  tall  chimney- 
stacks  of  the  new  cement  plant  were  rising,  and 
from  the  quarries  beyond  the  plant  the  dull 
thunder  of  the  blasts  drifted  up  to  the  Chigringo 
heights  Hke  a  sign  from  the  mysterious  under- 
world of  Navajo  legend. 

This  was  not  Brouillard's  first  visit  to  the  cabin 
on  the  Massingale  claim  by  many.     In  the  ear- 

87 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

liest  stages  of  the  valley  activities  Smith,  the 
Buckskin  cattleman,  had  been  Amy  Massingale's 
escort  to  the  reclamation  camp — "just  a  couple 
o'  lookers,"  in  Smith's  phrase — and  the  unconven- 
tional altitudes  had  done  the  rest.  From  that 
day  forward  the  young  woman  had  hospitably 
opened  her  door  to  Brouillard  and  his  assistants, 
and  any  member  of  the  corps,  from  Leshington 
the  morose,  who  commonly  came  to  sit  in  solemn 
silence  on  the  porch  step,  to  Griffith,  who  had  lost 
his  youthful  heart  to  Miss  Massingale  on  his  first 
visit,  was  welcome. 

Of  the  five  original  members  of  the  staff  and 
the  three  later  additions  to  it,  in  the  persons  of 
the  paymaster,  the  cost-keeper,  and  young  Alt- 
wein,  who  had  come  in  as  Grislow's  field  assistant, 
Brouillard  was  the  one  who  climbed  oftenest  up 
the  mountain-side  trail  from  the  camp — a  trail 
which  was  becoming  by  this  time  quite  well 
defined.  He  knew  he  went  oftener  than  any  of 
the  others,  and  yet  he  felt  that  he  knew  Amy 
Massingale  less  intimately  and  was  far  and  away 
more  hopelessly  entangled  than — well,  than  Gris- 
low,  for  example,  whose-  visits  to  the  mine  cabin 
came  next  in  the  scale  of  frequency  and  whose 
ready  wit  and  gentle  cynicism  were  his  passports 
in  any  company. 


Symptomatic 

For  himself,  Brouillard  had  not  been  point- 
edly analytical  as  yet.  From  the  moment  when 
Amy  and  Smith  had  reined  up  at  the  door  of  his 
office  shack  and  he  had  welcomed  them  both,  it 
had  seemed  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world 
to  fall  under  the  spell  of  enchantment.  He  knew 
next  to  nothing  of  the  young  woman's  life  story; 
he  had  not  cared  to  know.  It  had  not  occurred 
to  him  to  wonder  how  the  daughter  of  a  man  who 
drilled  and  shot  the  holes  in  his  own  mine  should 
have  the  gifts  and  belongings — when  she  chose 
to  display  them — of  a  woman  of  a  much  wider 
world.  It  was  enough  for  him  that  she  was  pi- 
quantly  attractive  in  any  character  and  that  he 
found  her  marvellously  stimulating  and  uplift- 
ing. On  the  days  when  the  devil  of  moroseness 
and  irritability  possessed  and  maddened  him  he 
could  climb  to  the  cabin  on  high  Chigringo  and 
find  sanity.  It  was  a  keen  joy  to  be  with  her, 
and  up  to  the  present  this  had  sufficed. 

''Egoism  is  merely  another  name  for  the  ex- 
pression of  a  vital  need,"  he  said,  after  the  diva- 
gating pause,  defining  the  word  more  for  his  own 
satisfaction  than  in  self-defense. 

"You  may  put  it  in  that  way  if  you  please," 
she  returned  gravely.     "What  is  your  need?" 

He  stated  it  concisely.  "Money — a  lot  of  it." 
89 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"How  singular!"  she  laughed.  "I  need  money, 
too — a  lot  of  it." 

"You?" 

"Yes,  I." 

"What  would  you  do  with  it?  Buy  corner  lots 
in  Niqoyastcadjeburg?" 

"  No,  indeed ;  I'd  buy  a  farm  in  the  Blue-grass — 
two  of  them,  maybe." 

"What  an  ambition  for  a  girl!  Have  you  ever 
been  in  the  Blue-grass  country?" 

She  got  out  of  the  hammock  and  came  to  lean, 
with  her  hands  behind  her,  against  the  opposite 
porch  post.  "That  was  meant  to  humiUate  me, 
and  I  sha'n't  forget  it.  You  know  well  enough 
that  I  have  never  been  east  of  the  Mississippi." 

"I  didn't  know  it.  You  never  tell  me  anything 
about  yourself." 

Again  the  mood  shutter  cHcked  and  her  smile 
was  the  calm  mask  of  discerning  wisdom. 

"Persons  with  well-developed  egos  don't  care 
to  Hsten  to  folk-stories,"  she  rejoined,  evading  the 
tentative  invitation  openly.  "But  tell  me,  what 
would  you  do  with  your  pot  of  rainbow  gold — if 
you  should  find  it?" 

Brouillard  rose  and  straightened  himself  with 
his  arms  over  his  head  like  an  athlete  testing 
his  muscles  for  the  record-breaking  event. 

90 


Symptomatic 

"What  would  I  do?  A  number  of  things.  But 
first  of  all,  I  think,  I'd  buy  the  privilege  of  telling 
some  woman  that  I  love  her." 

This  time  her  laugh  was  frankly  disparaging. 
"As  if  you  could!"  she  said,  with  a  lip  curl  that 
set  his  blood  afire — "as  if  any  woman  worth  while 
would  care  two  pins  for  your  wretched  pot  of 
gold!" 

"Oh,  I  didn't  mean  it  quite  that  way,"  he  has- 
tened to  explain.  "I  said:  'Buy  the  privilege.' 
If  ycu  knew  the  conditions  you  would  under- 
stand me  when  I  say  that  the  money  must  come 
first." 

She  was  silent  for  so  long  a  time  that  he  looked 
at  his  watch  and  thought  of  going.  But  at  the 
deciding  instant  she  held  him  with  a  low-spoken 
question. 

"Does  it  date  back  to  the  handicap?  You 
needn't  tell  me  if  you  don't  want  to." 

"It  does.  And  there  is  no  reason  why  I 
shouldn't  tell  you  the  simple  fact.  When  my 
father  died  he  left  me  a  debt — a  debt  of  honor; 
and  it  must  be  paid.  Until  it  is  paid — but  I  am 
sure  you  understand." 

"Quite  fully,"  she  responded  quickly,  and  now 
there  was  no  trace  of  levity  in  the  sweetly  serious 
tone.     "  Is  it  much  ? — so  much  that  you  can't " 

91 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

He  nodded  and  sat  down  again  on  the  porch 
step.  "Yes,  it  is  big  enough  to  go  in  a  class  by 
itself — in  round  numbers,  a  hundred  thousand 
dollars." 

"Horrors!"  she  gasped.  "And  you  are  carry- 
ing that  millstone?     Must  you  carry  it?" 

"If  you  knew  the  circumstances  you  would  be 
the  first  to  say  that  I  must  carry  it,  and  go  on 
carrying  it  to  the  end  of  the  chapter." 

"But — but  you'll  never  be  free!" 

"Not  on  a  government  salary,"  he  admitted. 
"As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  takes  more  than  half  of 
the  salary  to  pay  the  premiums  on — pshaw!  I'm 
boring  you  shamelessly  for  the  sake  of  proving 
up  on  my  definition  of  the  eternal  ego.  You  ought 
not  to  have  encouraged  me.  It's  quite  hopeless — 
the  handicap  business — unless  some  good  angel 
should  come  along  with  a  miracle  or  two.  Let's 
drop  it." 

She  was  looking  beyond  him  and  her  voice  was 
quick  with  womanly  sympathy  when  she  said: 
"If  you  could  drop  it — but  you  can't.  And  it 
changes  everything  for  you,  distorts  everything, 
colors  your  entire  life.     It's  heart-breaking!" 

This  was  dangerous  ground  for  him  and  he 
knew  it.  Sympathy  applied  to  a  rankling  wound 
may  figure  either  as  the  healing  oil  or  the  madden- 

92 


Symptomatic 

ing  wine.  It  was  the  one  thing  he  had  hitherto 
avoided,  resolutely,  half-fearfully,  as  a  good  gen- 
eral going  into  battle  marches  around  a  kennel 
of  sleeping  dogs.  But  now  the  under-depths  were 
stirring  to  a  new  awakening.  In  the  ardor  of 
young  manhood  he  had  taken  up  the  vicarious 
burden  dutifully,  and  at  that  time  his  renunciation 
of  the  things  that  other  men  strove  for  seemed  the 
lightest  of  the  many  fetterings.  But  now  love 
for  a  woman  was  threatening  to  make  the  renun- 
ciation too  grievous  to  be  borne. 

"How  did  you  know?"  he  queried  curiously. 
"It  does  change  things;  it  has  changed  them 
fiercely  in  the  past  few  weeks.  We  smile  at  the 
old  fable  of  a  man  selling  his  soul  for  a  ready- 
money  consideration,  but  there  are  times  when 
I'd  sell  anything  I've  got,  save  one,  for  a  chance 
at  the  freedom  that  other  men  have — and  don't 
value." 

"What  is  the  one  thing  you  wouldn't  sell?" 
she  questioned,  and  Brouillard  chose  to  discover 
a  gently  quickened  interest  in  the  clear-seeing 
eyes. 

"My  love  for  the — for  some  woman.  I'm  sav- 
ing that,  you  know.  It  is  the  only  capital  I'll 
have  when  the  big  debt  is  paid." 

"Do  you  want  me  to  be  frivolous  or  serious?" 

93 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

she  asked,  looking  down  at  him  with  the  grimacing 
little  smile  that  always  reminded  him  of  a  caress. 
"A  Httle  while  ago  you  said  'some  woman,'  and 
now  you  say  it  again,  making  it  cautiously  im- 
personal. That  is  nice  of  you — not  to  particular- 
ize; but  I  have  been  wondering  whether  she  is  or 
isn't  worth  the  effort — and  the  reservation  you 
make.  Because  it  is  all  in  that,  you  know.  You 
can  do  and  be  what  you  want  to  do  and  be  if 
you  only  want  to  hard  enough." 

He  looked  up  quickly. 

"Do  you  really  beheve  that?  What  about  a 
man's  natural  limitations?" 

"Poof!"  she  said,  blowing  the  word  away  as  if 
it  were  a  bit  of  thistle-down.  "It  is  only  the 
woman's  hmitations  that  count,  not  the  man's. 
The  only  question  is  this:  Is  the  one  only  and 
incomparable  she  worth  the  effort?  Would  you 
give  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  for  the  privilege 
of  being  able  to  say  to  her:  'Come,  dear,  let's  go 
and  get  married'?" 

He  was  looking  down,  chiefly  because  he  dared 
not  look  up,  when  he  answered  soberly:  "She 
is  worth  it  many  times  over;  her  price  is  above 
rubies.  Money,  much  or  little,  wouldn't  be  in 
it." 

"That  is  better — much  better.     Now  we   may 

94 


Symptomatic 

go  on  to  the  ways  and  means;  they  are  all  in  the 
man,  not  in  the  things,  'not  none  whatsoever,' 
as  Tig  would  say.  Let  me  show  you  what  I 
mean.  Three  times  within  my  recollection  my 
father  has  been  worth  considerably  more  than 
you  owe,  and  three  time  she  has — ^well,  it's  gone. 
And  now  he  is  going  to  make  good  again  when 
the  railroad  comes." 

Brouillard  got  up,  thrust  his  hands  into  the 
pockets  of  his  working-coat,  and  faced  about  as  if 
he  had  suddenly  remembered  that  he  was  wast- 
ing the  government's  time. 

"I  must  be  going  back  down  the  hill,"  he  said. 
And  then,  without  warning:  "What  if  I  should 
tell  you  that  the  railroad  is  not  coming  to  the 
Niquoia,  Amy.^" 

To  his  utter  amazement  the  blue  eyes  filled 
suddenly.  But  the  owner  of  the  eyes  was  wink- 
ing the  tears  away  and  laughing  before  he  could 
put  the  amazement  into  words. 

"You  shouldn't  hit  out  like  that  when  one 
isn't  looking;  it's  wicked,"  she  protested.  "Be- 
sides, the  railroad  is  coming;    it's  got  to  come." 

"It  is  still  undecided,"  he  told  her  mechanically. 
"Mr.  Ford  is  coming  over  with  the  engineers  to 
have  a  conference  on  the  ground  with — with  the 
Cortwright  people.    I  am  expecting  him  any  day." 

95 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"The  Cortwright  people  want  the  road,  don't 
they?"  she  asked. 

**Yes,  Indeed;  they  are  turning  heaven  and 
earth  over  to  get  it." 

"And  the  government?" 

"The  department  is  holding  entirely  aloof,  as 
it  should.  Every  one  in  the  Reclamation  Service 
knows  that  no  good  can  possibly  come  of  any 
effort  to  force  the  region  ahead  of  its  normal  and 
natural  development.  And,  besides,  none  of  us 
here  in  the  valley  want  to  help  blow  the  Cort- 
wright bubble  any  bigger  than  it  has  to  be." 

"Then  you  will  advise  against  the  building  of 
the  Extension?" 

Instead  of  answering  her  question  he  asked  one 
of  his  own. 

"What  does  it  mean  to  you — to  you,  person- 
ally, and  apart  from  the  money  your  father  might 
make  out  of  it.  Amy?" 

She  hesitated  a  moment  and  then  met  the 
shrewd  scrutiny  of  his  gaze  with  open  candor. 

"The  money  is  only  a  means  to  an  end — as 
yours  will  be.  You  know  very  well  what  I  meant 
when  I  told  you  that  three  times  we  have  been 
obliged  to  come  back  to  the  mountains  to — to  try 
again.  I  dreaded  the  coming  of  your  camp;  I 
dread  a  thousand  times  more  the  other  changes 

96 


Symptomatic 

that  are  coming — the  temptations  that  a  mush- 
room city  will  offer.  This  time  father  has  prom- 
ised me  that  when  he  can  make  his  stake  he  will 
go  back  to  Kentucky  and  settle  down;  and  he 
will  keep  his  promise.  More  than  that,  Stevie 
has  promised  me  that  he  will  go,  too,  if  he  can 
have  a  stock-farm  and  raise  fine  horses — his  one 
healthy  ambition.     Now  you  know  it  all." 

He  reached  up  from  the  lower  step  where  he 
was  standing  and  took  her  hand. 

"Yes;  and  I  know  more  than  that:  I  know  that 
you  are  a  mighty  brave  little  girl  and  that  your 
load  is  heavier  than  mine — worlds  heavier.  But 
you're  going  to  win  out;  if  not  to-day  or  to-mor- 
row, why,  then,  the  day  after.  It's  written  in  the 
book." 

She  returned  his  hand-grip  of  encouragement 
impulsively  and  smiled  down  upon  him  through 
quick-springing  tears. 

"You'll  win  out,  too,  Victor,  because  it's  in 
you  to  do  it.  I'm  sure  of  it — I  know  it.  There 
is  only  one  thing  that  scares  me." 

"Name  it,"  he  said.  "I'm  taking  everything 
that  comes  to-day — from  you." 

"You  are  a  strong  man;  you  have  a  reserve  of 
strength  that  is  greater  than  most  men's  full  gift; 
you  can  cut  and  slash  your  way  to  the  thing  you 

97 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

really  want,  and  nothing  can  stop  you.  But — 
you'll  forgive  me  for  being  plain,  won't  you? — 
there  is  a  little,  just  the  least  little,  bit  of  despera- 
tion in  the  present  point  of  view,  and " 

"Say  it,"  he  commanded  when  she  hesitated. 

"I  hardly  know  how  to  say  it.  It's  just  a  little 
shudder — inside,  you  know — as  you  might  have 
when  you  see  a  railroad  train  rushing  down  the 
mountain  and  think  what  would  happen  if  one 
single,  inconsequent  wheel  should  climb  the  rail. 
There  were  ideals  in  the  beginning;  you  admitted 
it,  didn't  you?  And  they  are  not  as  distinct  now 
as  they  used  to  be.  You  didn't  say  that,  but  I 
know.  .  .  .  Stand  them  up  again,  Victor;  don't 
let  them  fall  down  in  the  dust  or  in  the — in  the 
mud.  It's  got  to  be  clean  money,  you  know;  the 
money  that  is  going  to  give  you  the  chance  to  say: 
'Come,  girl,  let's  go  and  get  married.'  You  won't 
forget  that,  will  you?" 

He  relinquished  the  hand  of  encouragement  be- 
cause he  dared  not  hold  it  any  longer,  and  turned 
away  to  stare  absently  at  the  timbered  tunnel 
mouth  whence  a  faint  cHnking  of  hammer  upon 
steel  issued  with  monotonous  regularity. 

"I  wish  you  hadn't  said  that,  Amy — about  the 
ideals." 

"Why  shouldn't  I  say  it?     I  had  to  say  it." 
98 


Symptomatic 

**I  can't  afford  to  play  with  too  many  fine  dis- 
tinctions. I  have  accepted  the  one  great  handi- 
cap. I  may  owe  it  to  myself — and  to  some  others 
— not  to  take  on  any  more." 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean  now,"  she  said 
simply. 

"  Perhaps  it  is  just  as  well  that  you  don't.  Let's 
talk  about  something  else;  about  the  railroad.  I 
told  you  that  President  Ford  is  coming  over  to 
have  a  wrestle  with  the  Cortwright  people,  but  I 
didn't  tell  you  that  he  has  already  had  his  talk 
with  Mr.  Cortwright  in  person — in  Chicago.  He 
hasn't  decided;  he  won't  decide  until  he  has  looked 
the  ground  over  and  had  a  chance  to  confer  with 
me. 

She  bridged  all  the  gaps  with  swift  intuition. 
"He  means  to  give  you  the  casting  vote?  He 
will  build  the  Extension  if  you  advise  it?" 

"It  is  something  like  that,  I  fancy;  yes." 

"And  you  think — you  feel " 

"It  is  a  matter  of  absolute  indifference  to  me, 
officially.  But  in  any  event.  Ford  would  ask  for 
nothing  more  than  a  friendly  opinion." 

"Then  it  will  lie  in  your  hand  to  make  us  rich 
or  to  keep  us  poor,"  she  laughed.  "Be  a  good 
god-in-the-car,  please,  and  your  petitioners  will 
ever    pray."     Then,    with    an    instant    return    to 

99 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

seriousness:  "But  you  mustn't  think  of  that — of 
course,  you  won't — with  so  many  other  and  greater 
things  to  consider." 

"On  the  contrary,  I  shall  think  very  pointedly 
of  that;  pointedly  and  regretfully — because  your 
brother  has  made  it  practically  impossible  for  me 
to  help." 

"My  brother?"  with  a  little  gasp. 

"Yes.  He  offered  to  buy  my  vote  with  a 
block  of  'Little  Susan'  stock.  That  wouldn't 
have  been  so  bad  if  he  hadn't  talked  about  it — 
told  other  people  what  he  was  going  to  do.  But 
he  did  that,  as  well." 

He  felt  rather  than  saw  that  she  had  turned 
quickly  to  face  the  porch  post,  that  she  was 
hiding  her  face  in  the  crooking  of  an  arm.  It 
melted  him  at  once. 

"Don't  cry;  I  was  a  brute  to  say  such  a  thing 
as  that  to  you,"  he  began,  but  she  stopped  him. 

"No,"  she  denied  bravely.  "The  truth  may 
hurt — it  does  hurt  awfully;  but  it  can't  be  brutal. 
And  you  are  right.  Stevie  has  made  it  impos- 
sible." 

An  awkward  little  silence  supervened  and  once 
more  Brouillard  dragged  his  watch  from  its  pocket. 

"I'm  like  the  awkward  country  boy,"  he  said 
with  quizzical  humor.     "I  really  must  go  and  I 

lOO 


Symptomatic 

don't  know  how  to  break  away."  Then  he  went 
back  to  the  closed  topic.  "I  guess  the  other  thing 
was  brutal,  too — what  I  said  about  your  brother's 
having  made  it  impossible.  Other  things  being 


Again  she  stopped  him. 

"When  Mr.  Ford  comes,  you  must  forget  what 
Stevie  said  and  what  I  have  said.     Good-by." 

An  hour  later,  when  the  afternoon  shadow  of 
Jack's  Mountain  was  lying  all  across  the  shut-in 
valley  and  pointing  like  the  angle  of  a  huge  gnomon 
to  the  Quadjenai"  Hills,  Brouillard  was  closeted  in 
his  log-built  office  quarters  with  a  big,  fair-faced 
man,  whose  rough  tweeds  and  unbrushed,  soft 
hat  proclaimed  him  fresh  from  the  dust-dry 
reaches  of  the  Quesado  trail. 

"It  is  your  own  opinion  that  I  want,  Victor," 
the  fair-faced  man  was  saying,  "not  the  govern- 
ment engineer's.  Can  we  make  the  road  pay  if 
we  bring  it  here?  That  is  a  question  which  you 
can  answer  better  than  any  other  living  man. 
You  are  here  on  the  ground  and  you've  been  here 
from  the  first." 

"You've  had  it  out  with  Cortwright?"  Brouil- 
lard asked.  And  then:  "Where  is  he  now?  in 
Chicago?" 

lOI 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

*'No.  He  is  on  his  way  to  the  Niquoia,  com- 
ing over  in  his  car  from  El  Gato.  Says  he  made 
it  that  way  once  before  and  is  wilHng  to  bet  that 
it  is  easier  than  cHmbing  War  Arrow.  But  never 
mind  J.  Wesley.     You  are  the  man  I  came  to  see." 

"I  can  give  you  the  facts,"  was  the  quiet  re- 
joinder. "While  the  Cortwright  boom  lasts  there 
will  be  plenty  of  incoming  business — and  some 
outgoing.  When  the  bubble  bursts — as  it  will 
have  to  when  the  dam  is  completed,  if  it  doesn't 
before — you'll  quit  until  the  Buckskin  fills  up 
with  settlers  who  can  give  you  crops  to  move. 
That  is  the  situation  in  a  nutshell,  all  but  one 
little  item.  There  is  a  mine  up  on  Chigringo — 
Massingale's — with  a  good  few  thousand  tons  of 
pay  ore  on  the  dump.  Where  there  is  one  mine 
there  may  be  more,  later  on;  and  I  don't  suppose 
that  even  such  crazy  boomers  as  the  Cortwright 
crowd  will  care  to  put  in  a  gold  reduction  plant. 
So  you  would  have  the  ore  to  haul  to  the  Red 
Butte  smelters." 

A  smile  wrinkled  at  the  corners  of  the  big  man's 
eyes. 

"You  are  dodging  the  issue,  Victor,  and  you 
know  it,"  he  objected.  "What  I  want  is  your 
personal  notion.  If  you  were  the  executive  com- 
mittee of  the  Pacific  Southwestern,  would  you,  or 

I02 


Symptomatic 

would  you  not,  build  the  Extension?  That's  the 
point  I'm  trying  to  make." 

Brouillard  got  up  and  went  to  the  window. 
The  gnomon  shadow  of  Jack's  Mountain  had 
spread  over  the  entire  valley,  and  its  southern 
limb  had  crept  up  Chigringo  until  its  sharply  de- 
fined line  was  resting  upon  the  Massingale  cabin. 
When  he  turned  back  to  the  man  at  the  desk  he 
was  frowning  thoughtfully,  and  his  eyes  were  the 
eyes  of  one  who  sees  only  the  clearly  etched  lines 
of  a  picture  which  obscures  all  outward  and  visual 
objects  .  .  .  the  picture  he  saw  was  of  a  sweet- 
faced  young  woman,  laughing  through  her  tears 
and  saying:  "Besides,  the  railroad  iV  coming;  it's 
got  to  come." 

"If  you  put  it  that  way,"  he  said  to  the  man 
who  was  waiting,  "if  you  insist  on  pulling  my 
private  opinion  out  by  the  roots,  you  may  have 
it.     rd  build  the  Extension." 


103 


VI 

Mirapolis 

DURING  the  strenuous  weeks  when  Camp 
Niquoia's  straggHng  street  was  acquiring 
plank  sidewalks  and  getting  itself  transformed 
into  Chigringo  Avenue,  with  a  double  row  of 
false-fronted  "emporiums"  to  supplant  the  shack 
shelters,  Monsieur  Poudrecaulx  Bongras,  late  of 
the  San  Francisco  tenderloin,  opened  the  camp's 
first  counter-grill. 

Finding  monsieur's  name  impossible  in  both 
halves  of  it,  the  camp  grinned  and  rechristened 
him  "Poodles."  Later,  discovering  his  dual  gift 
of  past  mastership  in  potato  frying  and  coffee 
making,  the  camp  gave  him  vogue.  Out  of  the 
vogue  sprang  in  swift  succession  a  cafe  with  side- 
tables,  a  restaurant  with  private  dining-rooms, 
and  presently  a  commodious  hotel,  where  the  food 
was  excellent,  the  appointments  luxurious,  and 
where  Jack — clothed  and  in  his  right  mind  and 
with  money  in  his  hand — was  as  good  as  his 
master. 

104 


Mirapolis 

It  was  in  one  of  Bongras's  private  dining-rooms 
that  Mr.  J.  Wesley  Cortwright  was  entertaining 
Brouillard,  with  Miss  Genevieve  to  make  a  har- 
monizing third  at  the  circular  table  up  to  the 
removal  of  the  cloth  and  the  serving  of  the  cigars 
and  a  second  cold  bottle. 

The  little  dinner  had  been  a  gustatory  triumph; 
Miss  Genevieve  had  added  the  charm  of  lightness 
at  moments  when  her  father  threatened  to  let 
the  money  clink  become  painfully  audible;  and 
the  cigars  were  gold-banded.  Nevertheless,  when 
Miss  Cortwright  had  gone  up-stairs,  and  the  waiter 
would  have  refilled  his  glass,  Brouillard  shook  his 
head. 

If  the  millionaire  saw  the  refusal  he  was  too 
wise  to  remark  it.  Altogether,  Brouillard  was 
finding  his  first  impressions  of  Mr.  Cortwright  re- 
adjusting themselves  with  somewhat  confusing 
rapidity.  It  was  not  that  there  was  any  change 
in  the  man.  Charactering  the  genial  host  like  a 
bachelor  of  hospitality,  he  was  still  the  frank, 
outspoken  money-maker,  hot  upon  the  trail  of 
the  nimble  dollar.  Yet  there  was  a  change  of 
some  kind.  Brouillard  had  marked  it  on  the  day, 
a  fortnight  earlier,  when  (after  assuring  himself 
morosely  that  he  would  not)  he  had  gone  down  to 
the  lower  canyon   portal  to  see  the  Cortwright 

105 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

touring-car  finish  its  second  race  across  the  desert 
from  El  Gato. 

"Of  course,  I  was  quite  prepared  to  have  you 
stand  off  and  throw  stones  at  our  Httle  cob  house 
of  a  venture,  Brouillard,"  the  host  allowed  at  the 
lighting  of  the  gold-banded  cigars.  "You're  the 
government  engineer  and  the  builder  of  the  big 
dam;  it's  only  natural  that  your  horizons  should 
be  filled  with  government-report  pictures  and  half- 
tones of  what's  going  to  be  when  you  get  your 
dam  done.  But  you  can't  build  your  dam  in  one 
day,  or  in  two,  and  the  interval  is  ours.  I  tell 
you,  we're  going  to  make  Mirapolis  a  buzz-hummer 
while  the  daylight  lasts.     Don't  you  forget  that." 

"'Mirapolis'?"  queried  Brouillard.  "Is  that 
the  new  name.^" 

Cortwright  laughed  and  nodded.  "It's  Gene's 
name — 'Miracle  City.'  Fits  like  the  glove  on  a 
pretty  girl's  arm,  doesn't  it?" 

"It  does.  But  the  miracle  is  that  there  should 
be  any  money  daring  enough  to  invest  itself  in 
the  Niquoia." 

"There  you  go  again,  with  your  ingrained  engi- 
neering ideas  that  to  be  profitable  a  scheme  must 
necessarily  have  rock-bottom  foundations  and  a 
time-defying  superstructure,"  chuckled  the  host. 
"Why,    bless    your   workaday   heart,    Brouillard, 

1 06 


Mirapolis 

nothing  is  permanent  in  this  shuffling,  growing, 
progressive  world  of  ours — absolutely  nothing. 
Some  of  the  biggest  and  costliest  buildings  in  New 
York  and  Chicago  are  built  on  ground  leases. 
Our  ground  lease  will  merely  be  a  little  shorter 
in  the  factor  of  time." 

"So  much  shorter  that  the  parallel  won't  hold," 
argued  Brouillard. 

**The  parallel  does  hold;  that  is  precisely  the 
point.  Every  ground-lease  investment  is  a  gam- 
ble. The  investor  simply  bets  that  he  can  make 
the  turn  within  the  time  limit." 

"Yes;  but  a  long  term  of  years " 

"There  you  are,"  cut  in  the  financier.  "Now 
you've  got  it  down  to  the  hard-pan  basis:  long 
time,  small  profits  and  a  slow  return;  short  time, 
big  profits  and  a  quick  return.  You've  eaten 
here  before;  what  do  you  pay  Bongras  for  a 
reasonably  good  dinner?" 

Brouillard  laughed.  "Oh,  Poodles.  He  cinches 
us,  all  right;  four  or  five  times  as  much  as  it's 
worth — or  would  cost  anywhere  else." 

"That's  it.  He  knows  he  has  to  make  good  on 
all  these  little  luxuries  he  gives  you — cash  in  every 
day,  as  you  might  say,  and  come  out  whole  before 
you  stop  the  creek  and  drown  him.  Let  me  tell 
you  something,  Brouillard;    San  Francisco  brags 

107 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

about  being  the  cheapest  city  in  the  country; 
they'll  tell  you  over  there  that  you  can  buy  more 
for  your  money  than  you  can  anywhere  else  on 
earth.  Well,  Mirapolis  is  going  to  take  the  trophy 
at  the  other  end  of  the  speedwa}".  When  we 
get  in  motion  we're  going  to  have  Alaska  faded  to 
a  frazzle  on  prices — and  you'll  see  everybody  pay- 
ing them  joyfully." 

"And  in  the  end  somebody,  or  the  final  series 
of  somebodies,  will  be  left  to  hold  the  bag,"  fin- 
ished Brouillard. 

"That's  a  future.  What  is  it  the  Good  Book 
says?  'Let  us  eat,  drink  and  be  merry,  for  to- 
morrow we  die.'  That's  philosophy,  and  it's  good 
business,  too.  Not  that  I'm  admitting  your  pessi- 
mistic conclusions  for  a  single  minute;  don't  mis- 
take me  on  that  point.  There  needn't  be  any 
bag  holders,  Brouillard.  Let  me  put  it  in  a  nut- 
shell: we're  building  a  cement  plant,  and  we  shall 
sell  you  the  output — at  a  good,  round  price,  I 
promise  you,  but  still  at  a  lower  figure  than  you're 
paying  for  the  imported  article  now,  or  than  you 
will  pay  even  after  the  railroad  gets  in.  When 
our  government  orders  are  filled  we  can  afford  to 
wreck  the  plant  for  what  it  will  bring  as  junk. 
We'll  be  out  of  it  whole,  with  a  nice  little  profit." 

"That  is  only  one  instance,"  objected  the  guest. 
1 08 


Mirapolis 

"Well,  Bongras,  here,  is  one  more,"  laughed 
the  host.  "He  gets  a  piece  of  his  investment 
back  every  time  anybody  looks  over  his  menu 
card.  And  our  power  plant  is  another.  You 
made  your  little  kick  on  that  to  Washington — 
you  thought  the  government  ought  to  control  its 
own  power.  That  was  all  right,  from  your  point 
of  view,  but  we  beat  you  to  it.  Now  the  Recla- 
mation Service  gets  all  the  power  it  needs  at  a 
nominal  price,  and  we're  going  to  sell  enough 
more  to  make  us  all  feel  happy." 

"Sell  it?     To  whom?" 

Mr.  Cortwright  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and 
the  sandy-gray  eyes  seemed  to  be  searching  the 
inner  recesses  of  the  querying  soul. 

"That's  inside  information,  but  I  don't  mind 
taking  you  in  on  it,"  he  said  between  leisurely 
pufFs  at  his  cigar.  "We've  just  concluded  a  few 
contracts:  one  with  Massingale — he's  going  to 
put  in  power  drills,  electric  ore-cars,  and  a  mod- 
ern equipment  generally  and  shove  the  develop- 
ment of  the  'Little  Susan';  one  with  a  new  min- 
ing syndicate  which  will  begin  operations  at  once 
on  half  a  dozen  prospects  on  Jack's  Mountain;  and 
one  with  a  lumber  combination  that  has  just 
taken  over  the  sawmills,  and  will  install  others, 
with  a  planing-mill  and  sash  factory." 

109 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

Brouillard  nodded.  The  gray  eyes  were  slowly 
hypnotizing  him. 

"But  that  isn't  all,"  continued  the  promoter. 
*'We  are  about  to  reincorporate  the  power  plant 
as  the  Niquoia  Electric  Power,  Lighting,  and 
Traction  Company.  Within  a  fortnight  we'll  be 
lighting  Mirapolis,  and  within  a  month  after  the 
railroad  gets  in  we'll  be  operating  trolley-cars." 

The  enthusiast  paused  to  let  the  information 
sink  in,  also  to  note  the  effect  upon  the  subject. 
The  noting  was  apparently  satisfactory,  since  he 
went  on  with  the  steady  assurance  of  one  who 
sees  his  way  clearly. 

"That  brings  us  down  to  business,  Brouillard. 
I  don't  mind  admitting  that  I  had  an  object  in  ask- 
ing you  to  dine  with  me  this  evening.  It's  this: 
we  feel  that  in  the  reorganization  of  the  power 
company  the  government,  which  will  always 
be  the  largest  consumer,  should  be  represented  in 
some  effective  way;  that  its  interests  should  be 
carefully  safeguarded.  It  is  not  so  easy  as  it 
might  seem.  We  can't  exactly  make  the  govern- 
ment a  stockholder." 

"No,"  said  Brouillard  mechanically.  The  un- 
der-depths  were  stirring  again,  heaving  as  if  from 
a  mighty  ground-swell  that  threatened  a  tidal 
wave  of  overturnings. 

no 


Mirapolis 

"We  discussed  that  phase  of  it  in  the  directors' 
meeting  this  morning,"  continued  the  hypnotist 
smoothly,  "and  I  made  a  suggestion  which,  as 
president  of  the  company,  I  was  immediately  au- 
thorized to  carry  out.  What  we  need,  and  what 
the  government  needs,  is  a  man  right  here  on  the 
ground  who  will  be  absolutely  loyal  to  the  govern- 
ment's interests  and  who  can  be,  at  the  same 
time,  broad  enough  and  honorable  enough  to  be 
fair  to  us." 

Brouillard  roused  himself  by  a  palpable  effort. 

"You  have  found  your  man,  Mr.  Cortwright?" 

A  genial  smile  twinkled  in  the  little  gray  eyes. 

"I  didn't  have  very  far  to  go.  You  see,  I 
knew  your  father  and  I'm  not  afraid  to  trust  his 
son.  We  are  going  to  make  you  the  government 
director,  with  full  power  to  investigate  and  to 
act.  And  we're  not  going  to  be  mean  about  it, 
either.  The  capital  stock  of  the  company  is  ten 
millions,  with  shares  of  a  par  value  of  one  hundred 
dollars  each,  full  paid  and  non-assessable.  Don't 
gasp;  we'll  cut  a  nice  little  melon  on  that  capi- 
tahzation  every  thirty  days,  or  my  name  isn't 
Cortwright." 

"But  I  have  no  money  to  invest,"  was  the 
only  form  the  younger  man's  protest  took. 

"We  don't  need  your  money,"  cut  in  the  finan- 
III 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

cier  with  curt  good  nature.  "What  we  do  need 
is  a  consulting  engineer,  a  man  who,  while  he  is 
one  of  us  and  identified  with  us,  will  see  to  it  that 
we're  not  tempted  to  gouge  our  good  Uncle  Sam- 
uel. It  will  be  no  sinecure,  I  warn  you.  We're 
all  pretty  keen  after  the  dollar,  and  you'll  have 
to  hold  us  down  good  and  hard.  Of  course,  a 
director  and  a  consulting  officer  must  be  a  stock- 
holder, but  we'll  take  care  of  that." 

Brouillard  smoked  in  silence  for  a  full  minute 
before  he  said:  "You  know  as  well  as  I  do,  Mr. 
Cortwright,  that  it  is  an  unwritten  law  of  the 
Service  that  a  civilian  employee  of  the  govern- 
ment shall  not  engage  in  any  other  business." 

"No,  I  don't,"  was  the  blunt  reply.  "That 
rule  may  be  good  enough  to  apply  to  senators 
and  representatives — and  it  ought  to;  outside 
jobs  for  them  might  influence  legislation.  But  in 
your  case  it  would  not  only  be  unjust  to  apply 
it;  it  would  be  absurd  and  contradictory.  Sup- 
posing your  father  had  left  you  a  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars  to  invest  instead  of  a  debt  of  that 
amount — you  see^  I  know  what  a  load  your  keen 
sense  of  honor  is  making  you  carry — suppose  you 
had  this  money  to  invest,  would  your  position  in 
the  Reclamation  Service  compel  you  to  lock  it 
up  in  a  safety  vault?" 

112 


Mirapolis 

"Certainly  not.     But " 

"Very  good.  Your  objection  to  taking  part  in 
our  project  would  be  that  a  man  can't  be  strictly 
impartial  when  he  has  a  stake  in  the  game;  some 
men  couldn't,  Mr.  Brouillard,  but  you  can;  you 
know  you  can,  and  I  know  it.  Otherwise  you 
wouldn't  be  putting  half  of  your  salary  and  more 
into  life-insurance  premiums  to  secure  a  debt  that 
isn't  even  constructively  yours." 

"Yes;  but  if  the  department  should  learn  that 
I  am  a  stockholder  in  a  company  from  which  it 
buys  its  power " 

"There  wouldn't  be  a  word  said — not  one  sin- 
gle word.  They  know  you  in  Washington,  Brouil- 
lard, better,  perhaps,  than  you  think  they  do. 
They  know  you  would  exact  a  square  deal  for  the 
department  even  if  it  cost  you  personal  money. 
But  this  is  all  academic.  The  practical  facts  are 
that  you'll  come  in  as  consulting  engineer  and 
that  you'll  hold  us  strictly  up  to  the  mark  on  the 
government  power  contract.  It's  your  duty  and 
part  of  your  job  as  chief  of  construction.  And 
we'll  leave  the  money  consideration  entirely  out 
of  it  if  you  hke.  You'll  get  a  stock-certificate, 
which  you  may  keep  or  tear  up  and  throw  into 
the  waste-basket,  just  as  you  please.  If  you 
keep  it  and  want  to  realize  on  it  at  any  time  before 

113 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

you  begin  to  put  the  finishing  forms  on  the  dam, 
I'll  do  this:  I'll  agree  to  market  it  for  you  at 
par.  Now  let's  quit  and  go  and  find  Gene. 
She'll  think  we've  tippled  ourselves  under  the 
table." 

"One  moment,"  said  Brouillard.  **You  have  a 
way  of  taking  a  man  off  his  feet,  Mr.  Cortwright; 
a  rather  pleasant  way  I'm  bound  to  admit.  But 
in  this  thing  which  you  are  proposing  there  are 
issues  involved  which " 

"You  want  time  to  think  it  over?  Take  it, 
man;  take  all  the  time  you  need.  There's  no 
special  hurry." 

Brouillard  felt  that  in  accepting  the  condition 
he  was  potentially  committing  himself.  It  was  a 
measure  of  the  distance  he  had  already  travelled 
that  he  interposed  a  purely  personal  obstacle. 

"I  couldn't  serve  as  your  engineer,  Mr.  Cort- 
wright, not  even  in  a  consulting  capacity.  Call 
it  prejudice  or  anything  you  please,  but  I  simply 
couldn't  do  business  in  an  associate  relation  with 
your  man  Hosford." 

Cortwright  had  risen,  and  he  took  his  guest  con- 
fidentially by  the  buttonhole. 

"Do  you  know,  Brouillard,  Hosford  gets  on 
my  nerves,  too?  Don't  let  that  influence  you. 
We'll  let  Hosford  go.     We  needed  him  at  first  to 

114 


Mirapolis 

sort  of  knock  things  into  shape;  it  takes  a  man 
of  his  cahbre  in  the  early  stages  of  a  project  hke 
ours,  you  know.  But  he  has  outHved  his  useful- 
ness and  we'll  drop  him.     Let's  go  up-stairs." 

It  was  quite  late  in  the  evening  when  Brouillard, 
a  little  Hght-headed  from  an  after-dinner  hour  of 
purely  social  wit-matching  with  Miss  Genevieve, 
passed  out  through  the  cafe  of  the  Metropole  on 
his  way  to  his  quarters. 

There  were  a  few  late  diners  at  the  tables,  and 
Bongras,  smug  and  complacent  in  evening  regalia, 
was  waddling  about  among  them  hke  a  glorified 
head  waiter,  his  stiffly  roached  hair  and  Napole- 
onic mustaches  striving  for  a  dignity  and  fierce- 
ness which  was  cruelly  negatived  by  a  round,  full- 
fed  face  and  an  obese  httle  body. 

"Ze  dinnare — she  was  h-all  right,  M'sieu'  Brouil- 
lard?" he  inquired,  holding  the  engineer  for  a 
moment  at  the  street  door. 

"As  right  as  the  price  you're  going  to  charge 
Mr.  Cortwright  for  it,"  joked  Brouillard. 

"  Sacre  !  "  swore  the  amiable  one,  spreading  his 
hands,  "if  you  could  h-only  know  'ow  eet  is  cost 
to  bring  dose  dinnare  on  dis  place!  Two  doUare 
de  'undred  pounds  dat  mule-freightare  is  charge 
me  for  bringing  dose  chip-pest  wine  from  Quesado! 
Sommtime  ve  get  de  railroad,  n'est-ce  pas,  M'sieu' 

115 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

Brouillard?  Den  ve  make  dose  dinnare  moz 
risson-able." 

"Yes,  you  will!"  Brouillard  scoffed  jocosely. 
"You'll  be  adding  something  then  for  the  unique- 
ness— for  the  benefit  of  the  tourists.  It'll  be  a 
great  ad,  'The  Hotel  Metropole,  the  Delmonico's 
of  the  Lake  Bottom.  Sit  in  and  dine  with  us 
before  the  heavens  open  and  the  floods  come.'" 

"I'll  been  wanting  to  h-ask  you,"  whispered  the 
Frenchman  with  a  quick-flung  glance  for  the 
diners  at  the  nearest  of  the  tables,  "doze  flood — 
when  she  is  coming,  M'sieu'  Brouillard?" 

"When  we  get  the  dam  completed." 

"You'll  bet  money  h-on  dat? — h-all  de  money 
you  got?" 

"It's  a  sure  thing,  if  that's  what  you're  driving 
at.     You  can  bet  on  it  if  you  want  to." 

"I  make  my  bet  on  de  price  of  de  dinnare," 
smiled  Bongras.     ''Mais,  I  like  to  know  for  sure." 

"Why  should  you  doubt  it?" 

*'Moi,  I  don't  doubt  nottings;  I  make  de 
grass  to  be  cut  w'ile  de  sun  is  shine.  But  I'll 
been  hearing  somebody  say  dat  maybe-so  dis 
town  she  grow  so  fas'  and  so  beeg  dat  de  gover'- 
ment  is  not  going  drown  her." 

"Who  said  that?" 

"I    don't    know;    it  is    bruit — what   you    call 

ii6 


Mirapolis 

rumaire.     You   hear   it   h-on   de   Avenue,   in    de 
cafe,  h-anyw'eres  you  go," 

Brouillard  laughed  again,  this  time  with  his 
hand  on  the  door-latch. 

"Don't  lower  your  prices  on  the  strength  of 
any  such  rumor  as  that,  Poodles.  The  dam  will 
be  built,  and  the  Niquoia  will  be  turned  into  a 
lake,  with  the  Hotel  Metropole  comfortably  an- 
chored in  the  deepest  part  of  it — that  is,  if  it 
doesn't  get  gay  enough  to  float." 

"Dat's  juz  what  I'll  been  thinking,"  smiled  the 
little  man,  and  he  sped  the  parting  guest  with  a 
bow  that  would  have  graced  the  antechamber  of 
a  Louis  le  Grand. 

Out  in  the  crisp  night  air,  with  the  stars  shin- 
ing clear  in  the  velvet  sky  and  the  vast  bulks  of 
the  ramparting  mountains  to  give  solidity  and 
definiteness  to  the  scheme  of  things,  Brouillard 
was  a  httle  better  able  to  get  his  feet  upon  the 
stable  earth. 

But  the  major  impulse  was  still  levitant,  al- 
most exultant.  When  all  was  said,  it  was  Mr. 
Cortwright's  rose-colored  view  of  the  immediate 
future  that  persisted.  "Mirapolis!"  It  was  cer- 
tainly a  name  to  conjure  with;  an  inspiration  on 
the  part  of  the  young  woman  who  had  chosen  it. 

Brouillard   saw  the   projected   streets   pointing 
117 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

away  into  the  four  quarters  of  the  night.  It 
asked  for  little  effort  of  the  imagination  to  pic- 
ture them  as  the  streets  of  a  city — Hghted,  paved, 
and  busy  with  traffic.  Would  the  miracle  be 
wrought?  And  if  it  should  be,  was  there  any  pos- 
sibility that  in  time  the  building  of  the  great 
dam  and  the  reclamation  of  the  Buckskin  Desert 
would  become  secondary  in  importance  to  the 
preservation  of  Mirapolis? 

It  seemed  highly  incredible;  before  the  little 
dinner  and  the  social  evening  Brouillard  would 
have  said  it  was  blankly  impossible.  But  it  is 
only  fools  and  dead  men  who  cannot  admit  a 
changing  angle  in  the  point  of  view.  At  first 
Brouillard  laid  it  to  the  champagne,  forgetting 
that  he  had  permitted  but  a  single  refilling  of  his 
glass.  Not  then,  nor  for  many  days,  did  he  suspect 
that  it  was  his  first  deep  draught  of  a  far  head- 
ier wine  that  sent  the  blood  laughing  through 
his  veins  as  he  strode  down  Chigringo  Avenue  to 
his  darkened  office  quarters — the  wine  of  the  vint- 
ner whose  name  is  Graft. 


Ii8 


VII 
The  Speedway 

IT  was  in  the  days  after  he  had  found  on  his 
desk  a  long  envelope  enclosing  a  certificate 
for  a  thousand  shares  of  stock  in  the  Niquoia 
Electric  Power,  Lighting,  and  Traction  Company 
that  Brouillard  began  to  lose  his  nickname  of 
"Hell's-Fire"  among  his  workmen,  with  the 
promise  of  attaining,  in  due  time,  to  the  more 
affectionate  title  of  "the  Little  Big  Boss." 

At  the  envelope-opening  moment,  however,  he 
was  threatened  with  an  attack  of  heart  failure. 
That  Mr.  Cortwright  and  his  fellow  promoters 
should  make  a  present  of  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars  of  the  capital  stock  of  the  reorganized 
company  to  a  mere  government  watch-dog  who 
could  presumably  neither  help  nor  hinder  in  the 
money-making  plans  of  the  close  corporation,  was 
scarcely  believable.  But  a  hastily  sought  inter- 
view with  the  company's  president  cleared  the 
air  of  all  the  incredibilities. 

"Why,  my  dear  Brouillard!  what  in  Sam  Hill 
do  you  take  us  for.^"  was  the  genial  retort  when 

119 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

the  young  engineer  had  made  his  deprecatory 
protest.  "Did  you  think  we  were  going  to  cut 
the  melon  and  hand  you  out  a  piece  of  the  rind? 
Not  so,  my  dear  boy;  we  are  not  built  on  any 
such  narrow-gauge  lines.  But  seriously,  we're 
getting  you  at  a  bargain-counter  price.  One  of 
the  things  we're  up  against  is  the  building  of  an- 
other dam  higher  in  the  canyon  for  an  auxiliary 
plant.  In  taking  you  in,  we've  retained  the  best 
dam  builder  in  the  country  to  tell  us  where  and 
how  to  build  it." 

"That  won't  go,  Mr.  Cortwright,"  laughed 
Brouillard,  finding  the  great  man's  humor  pleas- 
antly infectious.  "You  know  you  can  hire  engi- 
neers by  the  dozen  at  the  usual  rates." 

"All  right,  blot  that  out;  say  that  I  wanted  to 
do  the  right  thing  by  the  son  of  good  old  Judge 
Antoine;  just  imagine,  for  the  sake  of  argument, 
that  I  wanted  to  pose  as  the  long-lost  uncle  of  the 
fairy-stories  to  a  fine  young  fellow  who  hasn't 
been  able  to  draw  a  full  breath  since  his  father 
died.  You  can  do  it  now,  Victor,  my  boy.  Any 
old  time  the  trusteeship  debt  your  father  didn't 
really  owe  gets  too  heavy,  you  can  unload  on  me 
and  wipe  it  out.  Isn't  it  worth  something  to 
realize  that?" 

"I  guess  it  will  be,  if  I  am  ever  able  to  get  down 

1 20 


The  Speedway 

to  the  solid  fact  of  realizing  it.  But  I  can't  earn 
a  hundred  thousand  dollars  of  the  company's 
stock,  Mr.  Cortwright." 

"Of  course  you  can.  That's  what  we  are  will- 
ing to  pay  for  a  good,  reliable  government  brake. 
It's  going  to  be  your  business  to  see  to  it  that  the 
Reclamation  Service  gets  exactly  what  its  con- 
tract calls  for,  kilowatt  for  kilowatt." 

"I'd  do  that,  anyhow,  as  chief  of  construction 
on  the  dam." 

"You  mean  you  would  try  to  do  it.  As  an 
officer  of  the  power  company,  you  can  do  it;  as 
an  official  kicker  on  the  outside,  you  couldn't 
feaze  us  a  particle.  What?  You'd  put  us  out 
of  business.?  Not  much,  you  wouldn't;  we'd 
play  politics  with  you  and  get  a  man  for  your 
job  who  wouldn't  kick." 

"Well,"  said  the  inheritor  of  sudden  wealth, 
still  matching  the  promoter's  mood,  "you  won't 
get  me  fired  now,  that's  one  comfort.  When  will 
you  want  my  expert  opinion  on  your  auxiliary 
dam?" 

"On  our  dam,  you  mean.  Oh,  any  time  soon; 
say  to-morrow  or  Friday — or  Saturday  if  that 
hurries  you  too  much.  We  sha'n't  want  to  go  to 
work  on  it  before  Monday." 

Being  himself  an  exponent  of  the  modern  the- 

121 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

ory  that  the  way  to  do  things  is  to  do  them  now, 
Brouillard  accepted  the  hurry  order  without 
comment.  Celerity,  swiftness  of  accomplishment 
that  was  almost  magical,  had  become  the  Mirapol- 
itan  order  of  the  day.  Plans  conceived  over- 
night leaped  to  their  expositions  in  things  done  as 
if  the  determination  to  do  them  had  been  all  that 
was  necessary  to  their  realization. 

"You  shall  have  the  report  to-morrow,"  said 
the  newly  created  consulting  engineer,  "but  you 
can't  go  to  work  Monday.  The  labor  market  is 
empty,  and  I'm  taking  it  for  granted  that  you're 
not  going  to  stampede  my  shovellers  and  concrete 
men." 

"Oh,  no,"  conceded  the  city  builder,  "we  sha'n't 
do  that.  You'll  admit — in  your  capacity  of  gov- 
ernment watch-dog — that  we  have  played  fair  in 
that  game.  We  have  imported  every  workman 
we've  needed,  and  we  shall  import  more.  That's 
one  thing  none  of  us  can  afford  to  do — bull  the 
labor  market.  And  it  won't  be  necessary;  we 
have  a  train  load  of  Italians  and  Bulgarians  on 
the  way  to  Quesado  to-day,  and  they  ought  to 
be  here  by  Monday." 

"You  are  a  wonder,  Mr.  Cortwright,"  was 
Brouillard's  tribute  to  the  worker  of  modern 
miracles,   and    he   went   his   way  to  ride  to  the 

122 


The  Speedway 

upper   end   of  the  valley  for  the  exploring  pur- 
pose. 

On  the  Monday,  as  President  Cortwright  had 
so  confidently  predicted,  the  train  load  of  labor- 
ers had  marched  in  over  the  War  Arrow  trail 
and  the  work  on  the  auxiliary  power  dam  was 
begun.  On  the  Tuesday  a  small  army  of  linemen 
arrived  to  set  the  poles  and  to  string  the  wires  for 
the  Hghting  of  the  town.  On  the  Wednesday 
there  were  fresh  accessions  to  the  army  of  build- 
ers, and  the  freighters  on  the  Quesado  trail  re- 
ported a  steady  stream  of  artisans  pouring  in  to 
rush  the  city  making. 

On  the  Thursday  the  grading  and  paving  of 
Chigringo  Avenue  was  begun,  and,  true  to  his 
promise,  Mr.  Cortwright  was  leaving  a  right  of 
way  in  the  street  for  the  future  trolley  tracks. 
And  it  was  during  this  eventful  week  that  the 
distant  thunder  of  the  dynamite  brought  the 
welcome  tidings  of  the  pushing  of  the  railroad 
grade  over  the  mountain  barrier.  Also — but  this 
was  an  item  of  minor  importance — it  was  on  the 
Saturday  of  this  week  that  the  second  tier  of  forms 
was  erected  on  the  great  dam  and  the  stripped 
first  section  of  the  massive  gray  foot-wall  of 
concrete  raised  itself  in  mute  but  eloquent  pro- 
test against  the  feverish  activities  of  the  miracle- 

123 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

workers.  If  the  protest  were  a  threat,  it  was  far 
removed.  Many  things  might  happen  before  the 
gray  wall  should  rise  high  enough  to  cast  its 
shadow,  and  the  shadow  of  the  coming  end,  over 
the  miraculous  city  of  the  plain. 

It  was  Brouillard  himself  who  put  this  thought 
into  words  on  the  Sunday  when  he  and  Grislow 
were  looking  over  the  work  of  form  raising  and 
finding  it  good. 

"Catching  you,  too,  is  it,  Victor?"  queried  the 
hydrographer,  dropping  easily  into  his  attitude  of 
affable  cynicism.  "I  thought  it  would.  But  tell 
me,  what  are  some  of  the  things  that  may  hap- 
pen?" 

"It's  easy  to  predict  two  of  them:  some  people 
will  make  a  pot  of  money  and  some  will  lose  out." 

Grislow  nodded.  "Of  course  you  don't  take 
any  stock  in  the  rumor  that  the  government  will 
call  a  halt?" 

"You  wouldn't  suppose  it  could  be  possible." 

"No.  Yet  the  rumor  persists.  Hosford  hinted 
to  me  the  other  day  that  there  might  be  a  Con- 
gressional investigation  a  little  further  along  to 
determine  whether  the  true  pro  bono  publico  lay 
in  the  reclamation  of  a  piece  of  yellow  desert  or 
in  the  preservation  of  an  exceedingly  promising 
and  rapidly  growing  young  city." 

124 


The  Speedway 

"Hosford  is  almost  as  good  a  boomer  as  Mr. 
Cortwright.     Everybody  knows  that." 

"Yes.  I  guess  Mirapolis  will  have  to  grow  a 
good  bit  more  before  Congress  can  be  made  to 
take  notice,"  was  the  hydrographer's  dictum. 
"Isn't  that  your  notion?" 

Brouillard  was  shaking  his  head  slowly, 

"I  don't  pretend  to  have  opinions  any  more, 
Grizzy.  I'm  living  from  day  to  day.  If  the  tail 
should  get  big  enough  to  wag  the  dog " 

They  were  in  the  middle  of  the  high  staging 
upon  which  the  puddlers  worked  while  filling  the 
forms  and  Grislow  stopped  short. 

"What's  come  over  you,  lately,  Victor?  I 
won't  say  you're  half-hearted,  but  you're  certainly 
not  the  same  driver  you  were  a  few  weeks  ago, 
before  the  men  quit  calling  you  'Hell's-Fire.'" 

Brouillard  smiled  grimly.  "It's  going  to  be  a 
long  job,  Grizzy.  Perhaps  I  saw  that  I  couldn't 
hope  to  keep  keyed  up  to  concert  pitch  all  the 
way  through.  Call  it  that,  anyway.  I've  prom- 
ised to  motor  Miss  Cortwright  to  the  upper  dam 
this  afternoon,  and  it's  time  to  go  and  do  it." 

It  was  not  until  they  were  climbing  down  from 
the  staging  at  the  Jack's  Mountain  approach  that 
Grislow  acquired  the  ultimate  courage  of  his  con- 
victions. 

125 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

''Going  motoring,  you  said — with  Miss  Gene- 
vieve. That's  another  change.  I'm  beginning  to 
beheve  in  your  seven-year  hypothesis.  You  are 
no  longer  a  woman-hater." 

"I  never  was  one.     There  isn't  any  such  thing." 

"You  used  to  make  beheve  there  was  and  you 
posed  that  way  last  summer.  Think  I  don't  re- 
member how  you  were  always  ranting  about  the 
dignity  of  a  man's  work  and  quoting  Kipling  at 
me?  Now  you've  taken  to  mixing  and  mingling 
like  a  social  reformer." 

"Well,  what  of  it?"  half-absently. 

"Oh,  nothing;  only  it's  interesting  from  a  purely 
academic  point  of  view.  I've  been  wondering  how 
far  you  are  responsible;  how  much  you  really  do, 
yourself,  and  how  much  is  done  for  you." 

Brouillard's  laugh  was  skeptical. 

"That's  another  leaf  out  of  your  psychological 
book,  I  suppose.     It's  rot." 

"Is  it  so?     But  the  fact  remains." 

"What  fact?" 

"The  fact  that  your  subconscious  self  has  got 
hold  of  the  pilot-wheel;  that  your  reasoning  self 
is  asleep,  or  taking  a  vacation,  or  something  of 
that  sort." 

"Oh,  bally!  There  are  times  when  you  make 
me  feel  as  if  I  had  eaten  too  much  dinner,  Grizzy! 

126 


The  Speedway 

This  is  one  of  them.  Put  it  in  words;  get  it  out 
of  your  system." 

"It  needs  only  three  words:  you  are  hypno- 
tized." 

"That  is  what  you  say;  it  is  up  to  you  to 
prove  it,"  scoffed  Brouillard. 

"I  could  easily  prove  it  to  the  part  of  you  that 
is  off  on  a  vacation.  A  month  ago  this  city- 
building  fake  looked  as  crazy  to  you  as  it  still 
does  to  those  of  us  who  haven't  been  invited  to 
sit  down  and  take  a  hand  in  Mr.  Cortwright's 
little  game.  You  hooted  at  it,  preached  a  little 
about  the  gross  immorality  of  it,  swore  a  good 
bit  about  the  effect  it  was  going  to  have  on  our 
working  force.  It  was  a  crazy  object-lesson  in 
modern  greed,  and  all  that." 

"Well?" 

"Now  you  seem  to  have  gone  over  to  the 
other  side.  You  hobnob  with  Cortwright  and  do 
office  work  for  him.  You  know  his  fake  is  a 
fake;  and  yet  I  overheard  you  boosting  it  the 
other  night  in  Poodles's  dining-room  to  a  table- 
ful of  money  maniacs  as  if  Cortwright  were  giv- 
ing you  a  rake-off." 

Brouillard  stiffened  himself  with  a  jerk  as  he 
paced  beside  his  accuser,  but  he  kept  his  temper. 

"You're  an  old  friend,  Grizzy,  and  a  mighty 
127 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

good  one — as  I  have  had  occasion  to  prove.  It 
is  your  privilege  to  ease  your  mind.  Is  that 
all?" 

**No.  You  are  letting  Genevieve  Cortwright 
make  a  fool  of  you.  If  you  were  only  half  sane 
you'd  see  that  she  is  a  confirmed  trophy  hunter. 
Why,  she  even  gets  down  to  young  Griffith — and 
uses  him  to  dig  out  information  about  you. 
She " 

"Hold  on,  Murray;  there's  a  limit,  and  you'll 
bear  with  me  if  I  say  that  you  are  working  up 
to  it  now."  Brouillard's  jaw  was  set  and  the 
lines  between  his  eyes  were  deepening.  "I  don't 
know  what  you  are  driving  at,  but  you'd  better 
call  it  off.     I  can  take  care  of  myself." 

"If  I  thought  you  could — if  I  only  thought  you 
could,"  said  Grislow  musingly.  "But  the  indi- 
cations all  lean  the  other  way.  It  would  be  all 
right  if  you  wanted  to  marry  her  and  she  wanted 
you  to;  but  you  don't — and  she  doesn't.  And, 
besides,  there's  Amy;  you  owe  her  something, 
don't  you? — or  don't  you?  You  needn't  grit  your 
teeth  that  way.  You  are  only  getting  a  part  of 
what  is  coming  to  you.  'Faithful  are  the  wounds 
of  a  friend,'  you  know." 

"Yes.  And  when  the  Psalmist  had  admitted 
that,  he  immediately  asked  the  Lord  not  to  let 

128 


The  Speedway 

their  precious  balms  break  his  head.  You're 
all  right,  Grizzy,  but  I'll  pull  through."  Then, 
with  a  determined  wrenching  aside  of  the  subject: 
"Are  you  going  up  on  Chigringo  this  afternoon?" 

"I  thought  I  would — yes.  What  shall  I  tell 
Miss  Massingale  when  she  asks  about  you?" 

"You  will  probably  tell  her  the  first  idiotic 
thing  that  comes  into  the  back  part  of  your  head. 
And  if  you  tell  her  anything  pifflous  about  me 
I'll  lay  for  j^ou  some  dark  night  with  a  pick 
handle." 

Grislow  laughed  reminiscently.  "She  won't 
ask,"  he  said. 

"Why  not?" 

"Because  the  last  time  she  did  it  I  told  her 
your  scalp  was  dangling  at  Miss  Genevieve's 
belt." 

They  had  reached  the  door  of  the  log-built 
quarters  and  Brouillard  spun  the  jester  around 
with  a  shoulder  grip  that  was  only  half  playful. 

"If  I  believed  you  said  any  such  thing  as 
that  I'd  murder  you!"  he  exploded.  "Perhaps 
you'll  go  and  tell  her  that — you  red-headed  blas- 
toderm!" 

"Sure,"  said  the  blastoderm,  and  they  went 
apart,  each  to  his  dunnage  kit. 


129 


VIII 
Table  Stakes 

THERE  were  a  dozen  business  blocks  under 
construction  in  Mirapolis,  with  a  propor- 
tional number  of  dwellings  and  suburban  villas 
at  various  stages  in  the  race  toward  completion, 
when  it  began  to  dawn  upon  the  collective  con- 
sciousness of  a  daily  increasing  citizenry  that 
something  was  missing.  Garner,  the  real-estate 
plunger  from  Kansas  City,  first  gave  the  missing 
quantity  its  name.  The  distant  thunder  of  the 
blasts  heralding  the  approach  of  the  railroad  had 
ceased  between  two  days. 

There  was  no  panic;  there  was  only  the  psy- 
choplasmic  moment  for  one.  Thus  far  there  had 
been  no  waning  of  the  fever  of  enthusiasm,  no 
slackening  of  the  furious  pace  in  the  race  for 
growth,  and,  in  a  way,  no  lack  of  business.  With 
money  plentiful  and  credit  unimpaired,  with  an 
army  of  workmen  to  spend  its  weekly  wage,  and 
a  still  larger  army  of  government  employees  to 
pour  a  monthly  flood  into  the  strictly  Hmited  pool 

130 


Table  Stakes 

of  circulation,  traffic  throve,  and  in  token  thereof 
the  saloons  and  dance-halls  never  closed. 

Up  to  the  period  of  the  silenced  dynamite 
thunderings  new  industries  were  projected  daily, 
and  investors,  tolled  in  over  the  high  mountain 
trails  or  across  the  Buckskin  in  dust-encrusted 
automobiles  by  methods  best  known  to  a  gray- 
mustached  adept  in  the  art  of  promotion,  thronged 
the  lobby  of  the  Hotel  Metropole  and  bought 
and  sold  Mirapolis  "corners"  or  "insides"  on  a 
steadily  ascending  scale  of  prices. 

Not  yet  had  the  time  arrived  for  selling  before 
sunset  that  which  had  been  bought  since  sunrise. 
On  the  contrary,  a  strange  mania  for  holdmg 
on,  for  permanency,  seemed  to  have  become  epi- 
demic. Many  of  the  working-men  were  securing 
homes  on  the  instalment  plan.  A  good  few  of 
the  villas  could  boast  parquetry  floors  and  tiled 
bath-rooms.  One  coterie  of  Chicagoans  refused 
an  advance  of  fifty  per  cent  on  a  quarter  square 
of  business  earth  and  the  next  day  decided  to 
build  a  six-storied  office-building,  with  a  ground- 
floor  corner  for  the  Niquoia  National  Bank,  com- 
modious suites  for  the  city  offices  of  the  power 
company,  the  cement  company,  the  lumber  syn- 
dicate, and  the  water  company,  and  an  entire 
floor  to  be  set  apart  for  the  government  engineers 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

and  accountants.  And  it  was  quite  in  harmony 
with  the  spirit  of  the  moment  that  the  building 
should  be  planned  with  modern  conveniences  and 
that  the  chosen  building  material  should  be  noth- 
ing less  permanent  than  monolithic  concrete. 

In  harmony  with  the  same  spirit  was  the  enter- 
prise which  cut  great  gashes  across  the  shoulder 
of  Jack's  Mountain  in  the  search  for  precious 
metal.  Here  the  newly  incorporated  Buckskin 
Gold  Mining  and  Milling  Company  had  discarded 
the  old  and  slow  method  of  prospecting  with  pick 
and  shovel,  and  power-driven  machines  ploughed 
deep  furrows  to  bed-rock  across  and  back  until 
the  face  of  the  mountain  was  zigzagged  and  scarred 
like  a  veteran  of  many  battles. 

In  keeping,  again,  was  the  energy  with  which 
Mr.  Cortwright  and  his  municipal  colleagues  laid 
water-mains,  strung  electric  wires,  drove  the  pav- 
ing contractors,  and  pushed  the  trolley-line  to  the 
stage  at  which  it  lacked  only  the  rails  and  the 
cars  awaiting  shipment  by  the  railroad.  Under 
other  conditions  it  is  conceivable  that  an  impa- 
tient committee  of  construction  would  have  had 
the  rails  freighted  in  across  the  desert,  would  have 
had  the  cars  taken  to  pieces  and  shipped  by  mule- 
train  express  from  Quesado.  But  with  the  rail- 
road grade  already  in  sight  on  the  bare  shoulders 

132 


Table  Stakes 

of  the  Hophra  Hills  and  the  thunder-blasts  play- 
ing the  presto  march  of  promise  the  committee 
could  afford  to  wait. 

This  was  the  situation  on  the  day  when  Garner, 
sharp-eared  listener  at  the  keyhole  of  Opportunity, 
missing  the  dynamite  rumblings,  sent  a  cipher 
wire  of  inquiry  to  the  East,  got  a  "  rush  "  reply,  and 
began  warily  to  unload  his  Mirapolitan  holdings. 
Being  a  man  of  business,  he  ducked  to  cover  first 
and  talked  afterward;  but  by  the  cime  his  hint 
had  grown  to  rumor  size  Mr.  Cortwright  had 
sent  for  Brouillard. 

"Pull  up  a  chair  and  have  a  cigar,"  said  the 
great  man  when  Brouillard  had  penetrated  to 
the  nerve-centre  of  the  Mirapolitan  activities  in 
the  Metropole  suite  and  the  two  stenographers 
had  been  curtly  dismissed.  "Have  you  heard  the 
talk  of  the  street  .f"  There  is  a  rumor  that  the 
railroad  grading  has  been  stopped." 

Brouillard,  busy  with  the  work  of  setting  the 
third  series  of  forms  on  his  great  wall,  had  heard 
nothing. 

"I've  noticed  that  they  haven't  been  blasting 
for  two  or  three  days.  But  that  may  mean 
nothing  more  than  a  delayed  shipment  of  dyna- 
mite," was  his  rejoinder. 

"It  looks  bad — devilish  bad."     The  promoter 

133 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

was  planted  heavily  in  his  pivot-chair,  and  the 
sandy-gray  eyes  dwindled  to  pin-points.  "Three 
days  ago  the  blasting  stopped,  and  Garner — you 
know  him,  the  little  Kansas  City  shark  across  the 
street — got  busy  with  the  wire.  The  next  thing 
we  knew  he  was  unloading,  quietly  and  without 
making  any  fuss  about  it,  but  at  prices  that  would 
have  set  us  afire  if  he'd  had  enough  stuff  in  his 
pack  to  amount  to  anything." 

Brouillard  tried  to  remember  that  he  was  the 
Reclamation  Service  construction  chief,  that  the 
pricking  of  the  Mirapolitan  bubble  early  or  late 
concerned  him  not  at  all, — tried  it  and  failed. 

"I  am  afraid  you  are  right,"  he  said  thought- 
fully. "We've  had  a  good  many  applications 
from  men  hunting  work  in  the  past  two  days, 
more  than  would  be  accounted  for  by  the  usual 
drift  from  the  railroad  camps." 

"You  saw  President  Ford  after  I  did;  what  did 
he  say  when  he  was  over  here.?" 

"He  said  very  little  to  me,"  replied  Brouillard 
guardedly.  "From  that  little  I  gathered  that  the 
members  of  his  executive  committee  were  not 
unanimously  in  favor  of  building  the  Extension." 

"Well,  we  are  up  against  it,  that's  all.  Read 
that,"  and  the  promoter  handed  a  telegram  across 
the  desk. 

134 


Table  Stakes 

The  wire  was  from  Chicago,  was  signed  "Acker- 
man,"  and  was  still  damp  from  the  receiving 
operator's  copying-press.     It  read: 

"Work  on  P.  S-W.'s  Buckskin  Extension  has 
been  suspended  for  the  present.  Reason  assigned, 
shrinkage  in  securities  and  uncertainty  of  busi- 
ness outlook  in  Niquoia." 

Brouillard's  first  emotion  was  that  of  the  en- 
gineer and  the  economist.  "What  a  bunch  of 
blanked  fools!"  he  broke  out.  "They've  spent 
a  clean  million  as  it  stands,  and  they  are  figur- 
ing to  leave  it  tied  up  and  idle!" 

Mr.  Cortwright's  frown  figured  as  a  fleshly 
mask  of  irritability. 

"I'm  not  losing  any  sleep  over  the  P.  S-W. 
treasury.  It's  our  own  basket  of  eggs  here  that 
I'm  worrying  about.  Let  it  once  get  out  that 
the  railroad  people  don't  believe  in  the  future  of 
Mirapolis  and  we're  done." 

Brouillard's  retort  was  the  expression  of  an 
upflash  of  sanity. 

"Mirapolis  has  no  future;  it  has  only  an  ex- 
ceedingly precarious  present." 

For  a  moment  the  sandy-gray  eyes  became  in- 
scrutable. Then  the  mask  of  irritation  slid  aside, 
revealing  the  face  which  Mr.  J.  Wesley  Cort- 
wright  ordinarily  presented  to  his  world — the 
face  of  imperturbable  good  nature. 

135 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"You're  right,  Brouillard;  Mirapolis  is  only  a 
good  joke,  after  all.  Sometimes  I  get  bamfoozled 
into  the  idea  that  it  isn't — that  it's  the  real  thing. 
That's  bad  for  the  nerves.  But  about  this  rail- 
road fizzle;  I  don't  relish  the  notion  of  having  our 
little  joke  sprung  on  us  before  we're  ready  to 
laugh,  do  you?     What  do  you  think?" 

Brouillard  shook  himself  as  one  who  casts  a 
burden. 

"It  is  not  my  turn  to  think,  Mr.  Cortwright." 

"Oh,  yes,  it  is;  very  pointedly.  You're  one  of 
us,  to  a  certain  extent;  and  if  you  were  not  you 
would  still  be  interested.  A  smash  just  now  would 
hamper  the  Reclamation  Service  like  the  mischief; 
the  entire  works  shut  down;  no  cement,  no  lum- 
ber, no  power;  everything  tied  up  in  the  courts 
until  the  last  creditor  quits  taking  appeals.  Oh, 
no,  Brouillard;  you  don't  want  to  see  the  end  of 
the  world  come  before  it's  due." 

It  was  the  consulting  engineer  of  the  power 
company  rather  than  the  Reclamation  Service 
chief  who  rose  and  went  to  the  window  to  look 
down  upon  the  morning  briskness  of  Chigringo 
Avenue.  And  it  was  the  man  who  saw  one  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars,  the  price  of  freedom,  slip- 
ping away  from  him  who  turned  after  a  minute 
or   two   of  the    absent   street   gazing    and    said: 

136 


Table  Stakes 

*'What  do  you  want  me  to  do,  Mr.  Cortwright? 
I  did  put  my  shoulder  to  the  wheel  when  Ford 
was  here.  I  told  him  if  I  were  in  his  place  I'd 
take  the  long  chance  and  build  the  Extension." 

"Did  you? — and  before  you  had  a  stake  in  the 
game?  That  was  a  white  man's  boost,  right! 
Have  another  cigar.  They're  'Poodles's  Pride,' 
and  they're  not  half  bad  when  you  get  used  to  the 
near-Havana  filler.  Think  you  could  manage  to 
get  Ford  on  the  wire  and  encourage  him  a  little 
more : 

"It  isn't  Ford;  it  is  the  New  York  bankers. 
You  can  read  that  between  the  lines  in  your  man 
Ackerman's  telegram." 

The  stocky  gentleman  in  the  pivot-chair  thrust 
out  his  jaw  and  tilted  his  freshly  Hghted  cigar  to 
the  aggressive  angle. 

"Say,  Brouillard,  we've  got  to  throw  a  fresh 
piece  of  bait  into  the  cage,  something  that  will 
make  the  railroad  crowd  sit  up  and  take  notice. 
By  George,  if  those  gold  hunters  up  on  Jack's 
Mountain  would  only  stumble  across  something 
big  enough  to  advertise " 

Brouillard  started  as  if  the  wishful  musing  had 
been  a  blow.  Like  a  hot  wave  from  a  furnace 
mouth  it  swept  over  him — the  sudden  realization 
that  the  means,  the  one  all-powerful,  earth-moving 

137 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

lever  the  promoter  was  so  anxiously  seeking,  lay 
in  his  hands. 

"The  Buckskin  people,  yes,"  he  said,  making 
talk  as  the  rifleman  digs  a  pit  to  hold  his  own  on 
the  firing-line.  "If  they  should  happen  to  uncover 
a  gold  reef  just  now  it  would  simplify  matters 
immensely  for  Mirapolis,  wouldn't  it?  The  rail- 
road would  come  on,  then,  without  a  shadow  of 
doubt.  All  the  bankers  in  New  York  couldn't 
hold  it  back." 

Now  came  Mr.  Cortwright's  turn  to  get  up  and 
walk  the  floor,  and  he  took  it,  tramping  solidly 
back  and  forth  in  the  clear  space  behind  the 
table-topped  desk.  It  was  not  until  he  had  ex- 
tended the  meditative  stump-and-go  to  one  of 
the  windows  that  he  stopped  short  and  came 
out  of  the  inventive  trance  with  a  jerk. 

"Come  here,"  he  called  curtly,  with  a  quick 
finger  crook  for  the  engineer,  and  when  Brouil- 
lard  joined  him:  "Can  you  size  up  that  little 
caucus  over  yonder?" 

The  "caucus"  was  a  knot  of  excited  men  block- 
ing the  sidewalk  in  front  of  Garner's  real-estate 
office  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  street.  The 
purpose  of  the  excited  ones  was  not  difficult  to 
divine.  They  were  all  trying  to  crowd  into  the 
Kansas  City  man's  place  of  business  at  once. 

138 


Table  Stakes 

"It  looks  like  a  run  on  a  bank,"  said  Brouillard. 

"It  is,"  was  the  crisp  reply.  "Garner  has 
beaten  everybody  else  to  the  home  plate,  but  he 
couldn't  keep  his  mouth  shut.  He's  been  talk- 
ing, and  every  man  in  that  mob  is  a  potential 
panic  breeder.  That  thing  has  got  to  be  nipped 
in  the  bud,  right  now!" 

"Yes,"  Brouillard  agreed.  He  was  still  wres- 
tling with  his  own  besetment — the  prompting 
which  involved  a  deliberate  plunge  where  up  to 
the  present  crisis  he  had  been  merely  wading  in 
the  shallows.  A  little  thing  stung  him  alive  to 
the  imperative  call  of  the  moment — the  sight  of 
Amy  Massingale  walking  down  the  street  with 
Tig  Smith,  the  Triangle-Circle  foreman.  It  was 
of  the  death  of  her  hopes  that  he  was  thinking 
when  he  said  coolly:  "You  have  sized  it  up  pre- 
cisely, Mr.  Cortwright;  that  is  a  panic  in  the 
making,  and  the  bubble  won't  stand  for  very 
much  pricking.  Give  me  a  free  hand  with  your 
check-book  for  a  few  minutes  and  I'll  try  to 
stop  it." 

It  spoke  volumes  for  the  millionaire  promoter's 
quick  discernment  and  decision  that  he  asked  no 
questions.  "Do  it,"  he  snapped.  "I'll  cover  you 
for  whatever  it  takes.  Don't  wait;  that  crowd  is 
getting  bigger  every  minute." 

139 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

Brouillard  ran  down-stairs  and  across  the  street. 
It  was  no  part  of  his  intention  to  stop  and  speak 
to  Amy  Massingale  and  the  ranchman,  but  he  did 
it,  and  even  walked  a  little  way  with  them  before 
he  turned  back  to  elbow  his  way  through  the 
sidewalk  throng  and  into  Garner's  dingy  little 
office. 

"You  are  selling  Mirapolis  holdings  short  to- 
day. Garner?"  he  asked  when  he  had  pushed 
through  the  crowd  to  the  speculator's  desk.  And 
when  Garner  laughed  and  said  there  were  no  tak- 
ers he  placed  his  order  promptly.  "You  may  bid 
in  for  me,  at  yesterday's  prices,  anything  within 
the  city  limits — not  options,  you  understand,  but 
the  real  thing.  Bring  your  papers  over  to  my 
office  after  banking  hours  and  we'll  close  for 
whatever  you've  been  able  to  pick  up." 

He  said  it  quietly,  but  there  could  be  no  pri- 
vacy at  such  a  time  and  in  such  a  place. 

"What's  that,  Mr.  Brouillard?"  demanded 
one  in  the  counter  jam.  "You're  giving  Garner 
a  blank  card  to  buy  for  your  account?  Say, 
that's  plenty  good  enough  for  me.  Garner,  can- 
cel my  order  to  sell,  will  you?  When  the  chief 
engineer  of  the  government  water-works  believes 
in  Mirapolis  futures  and  bets  his  money  on  'em, 
I'm  not  selling." 

140 


Table  Stakes 

The  excitement  was  already  dying  down  and 
the  crowd  was  melting  away  from  Garner's  side- 
walk when  Brouillard  rejoined  Mr.  Cortwright  in 
the  second-floor  room  across  the  street. 

"Well,  it's  done,"  he  announced  shortly,  add- 
ing: "It's  only  a  stop-gap.  To  make  the  bluff 
good,  you've  got  to  have  the  railroad." 

"That's  the  talk,"  said  the  promoter,  rehght- 
ing  the  cigar  which  the  few  minutes  of  crucial 
suspense  had  extinguished.  And  then,  without 
warning:  "You're  carrying  something  up  your 
sleeve,  Brouillard.     What  is  it.^" 

"It  is  the  one  thing  you  need,  Mr.  Cortwright. 
If  I  could  get  my  own  consent  to  use  it  I  could 
bring  the  railroad  here  in  spite  of  those  New 
Yorkers  who  seem  to  have  an  attack  of  cold 
feet." 

Mr.  J.  Wesley  Cortwright's  hesitation  was  so 
brief  as  to  be  almost  imperceptible.  "I  suppose 
that  is  your  way  of  saying  that  your  share  in 
the  table  stakes  isn't  big  enough.  All  right; 
the  game  can't  stop  in  the  middle  of  a  bet. 
How  much  is  it  going  to  cost  us  to  stay 
mr 

"The  cost  isn't  precisely  in  the  kind  of  fig- 
ures that  you  understand  best,  Mr.  Cortwright. 
And  as  to  my  share  in  the  profits  .  .  .  well,  we 

141 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

needn't  mince  matters;  you  may  remember  that 
you  were  at  some  considerable  pains  to  ascertain 
my  price  before  you  made  the  original  bid — and 
the  bid  was  accepted.  You've  just  been  given  a 
proof  that  I'm  trying  to  earn  my  money.  No 
other  man  in  Mirapolis  could  have  served  your 
turn  over  there  at  Garner's  as  I  did  a  few  min- 
utes ago.     You  know  that." 

"Good  Lord,  man,  I'm  not  kicking!  But  we 
are  all  in  the  same  boat.  If  the  railroad  work 
doesn't  start  up  again  within  the  next  few  days 
we  are  all  due  to  go  to  pot.  If  you've  got  the 
odd  ace  up  your  sleeve  and  don't  play  it,  you 
stand  to  lose  out  with  the  rest  of  us." 

The  door  was  open  into  the  anteroom  where 
the  stenographers'  desks  were,  and  Brouillard  was 
staring  gloomily  into  the  farther  vacancies. 

"I  wonder  if  you  know  how  little  I  care?"  he 
said  half  musingly.  Then,  with  sudden  vehe- 
mence: "It  is  altogether  a  question  of  motive 
with  me,  Mr.  Cortwright;  of  a  motive  which  you 
couldn't  understand  in  a  thousand  years.  If  that 
motive  prevails,  you  get  your  railroad  and  a  little 
longer  lease  of  life.  If  it  doesn't,  Mirapolis  will 
go  to  the  devil  some  few  weeks  or  months  ahead 
of  its  schedule — and  I'll  take  my  punishment  with 
the  remainder  of  the  fools — and  the  knaves." 

142 


Table  Stakes 

He  was  on  his  feet  and  moving  toward  the  door 
of  exit  when  the  promoter  got  his  breath. 

"Here,  hold  on,  Brouillard — for  Heaven's  sake, 
don't  go  off  and  leave  it  up  in  the  air  that  way!" 
he  protested. 

But  the  corridor  door  had  opened  and  closed 
and  Brouillard  was  gone. 

Two  hours  later  Mirapolis  the  frenetic  had 
a  new  thrill,  a  shock  so  electrifying  that  the  ru- 
mor of  the  railroad's  halting  decision  sank  into 
insignificance  and  was  forgotten.  The  suddenly 
evoked  excitement  focussed  in  a  crowd  besieging 
the  window  of  the  principal  jewelry  shop — fo- 
cussed more  definitely  upon  a  square  of  white 
paper  in  the  window  in  the  centre  of  which  was 
displayed  a  little  heap  of  virgin  gold  in  small 
nuggets  and  coarse  grains. 

While  the  crowds  in  the  street  were  still  strug- 
gling and  fighting  to  get  near  enough  to  read  the 
labelling  placard,  the  Daily  Spot-Light  came  out 
with  an  extra  which  was  all  head-lines,  the  tele- 
graph-wires to  the  East  were  buzzing,  and  the 
town  had  gone  mad.  The  gold  specimen — so 
said  the  placard  and  the  news  extra — had  been 
washed  from  one  of  the  bars  in  the  Niquoia. 

By  three  o'clock  the  madness  had  culminated 
in  the  complete  stoppage  of  all  work  among  the 

143 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

town  builders  and  on  the  great  dam  as  well,  and 
gold-crazed  mobs  were  frantically  digging  and 
panning  on  every  bar  in  the  river  from  the  valley 
outlet  to  the  power  dam  five  miles  away. 


144 


IX 

Bedlam 

IT  was  between  two  and  three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon  of  the  day  in  which  Mirapolis  went 
placer  mad  when  word  came  to  the  Reclamation- 
Service  headquarters  that  the  power  was  cut  off 
and  that  there  were  no  longer  men  enough  at 
the  mixers  and  on  the  forms  to  keep  the  work 
going  if  the  power  should  come  on  again. 

Handley,  the  new  fourth  assistant,  brought  the 
news,  dropping  heavily  into  a  chair  and  shoving 
his  hat  to  the  back  of  his  head  to  mop  his  seamed 
and  sun-browned  face. 

"Why  the  devil  didn't  you  fellows  turn  out?" 
he  demanded  savagely  of  Leshington,  Anson,  and 
Grislow,  who  were  lounging  in  the  office  and 
very  pointedly  waiting  for  the  Hghtning  to  strike. 
"Gassman  and  I  have  done  everything  but  com- 
mit cold-blooded  murder  to  hold  the  men  on  the 
job.     Where's  the  boss?" 

Nobody  knew,  and  Grislow,  at  least,  was  vis- 
ibly  disturbed   at   the   question.     It  was   Anson 

14s 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

who  seemed  to  have  the  latest  information  about 
Brouillard. 

"He  came  in  about  eleven  o'clock,  rummaged 
for  a  minute  or  two  in  that  drawer  you've  got 
your  foot  on,  Grizzy,  and  then  went  out  again. 
Anybody  seen  him  since?" 

There  was  a  silence  to  answer  the  query,  and 
the  hydrographer  righted  his  chair  abruptly  and 
closed  the  opened  drawer  he  had  been  utilizing 
for  a  foot-rest.  He  had  a  long  memory  for  trifles, 
and  at  the  mention  of  the  drawer  a  disquieting 
picture  had  flashed  itself  upon  the  mental  screen. 
There  were  two  figures  in  the  picture,  Brouillard 
and  himself,  and  Brouillard  was  tossing  the  little 
buckskin  sack  of  gold  nuggets  into  the  drawer, 
where  it  had  lain  undisturbed  ever  since — until 
now. 

Moreover,  Grislow's  news  of  Brouillard,  if  he 
had  seen  fit  to  publish  it,  was  later  than  Anson's. 
At  one  o'clock,  or  thereabout,  the  chief  had 
come  into  the  mapping  room  for  a  glance  at  the 
letters  on  his  desk.  One  of  the  letters — a  note  in 
a  square  envelope — he  had  thrust  into  his  pocket 
before  going  out. 

"It  looks  as  if  the  chief  had  gone  with  the 
crowd,"  said  Leshington  when  the  silence  had 
grown  almost  portentous,  "though  that  wouldn't 

146 


Bedlam 

be  like  him.     Has  anybody  found  out  yet  who 
touched  ofF  the  gold-mounted  sky-rocket?" 

Grislow  came  out  of  his  brown  study  with  a 
start.  "Levy  won't  tell  who  gave  him  those 
nuggets  to  put  in  his  window.  I  tried  him.  All 
he  will  say  is  that  the  man  who  left  the  sample 
is  perfectly  reliable  and  that  he  dictated  the  ex- 
act wording  of  the  placard  that  did  the  busi- 
ness. 

"I  saw  Harlan,  of  the  Spot-Light,  half  an  hour 
ago,"  cut  in  Anson.  "He's  plumb  raving  crazy, 
Hke  everybody  else,  but  there  is  something  faintly 
resembling  method  in  his  madness.  He  figures 
it  that  we  government  people  are  out  of  a  job 
permanently;  that  with  the  discovery  of  these 
placers — or,  rather,  with  the  practically  certain 
rediscovery  of  them  by  the  mob — Mirapolis  will 
jump  to  the  front  rank  as  a  gold  camp,  and  the 
Reclamation  Service  will  have  to  call  a  halt  on 
the  Buckskin  project." 

Leshington's  long,  plain-song  face  grew  wooden. 
"You  say  'practically  certain.'  The  question  is: 
Will  they  be  rediscovered?  Bet  any  of  you  a 
box  of  Poodles's  Flor  de  near  Havanas  that  it's 
some  new  kind  of  a  flip-flap  invented  by  J.  Wesley 
and  his  boomers.     What  do  you  say?" 

"Good     Lord!"     growled     Handley.      "They 

147 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

didn't  need  any  new  stunts.  They  had  the  world 
by  the  ear,  as  it  was." 

" That's  all  right,"  returned  Leshington ; "  maybe 
they  didn't.  I  heard  a  thing  or  two  over  at  Bon- 
gras's  last  night  that  set  me  guessing.  There  was 
a  piece  of  gossip  coming  up  the  pike  about  the 
railroad  pulling  out  of  the  game,  or,  rather,  that 
it  had  already  pulled  out." 

Once  more  silence  fell  upon  the  group  in  the 
mapping  room,  and  this  time  it  was  Grislow  who 
broke  it. 

"I  suppose  Harlan  is  getting  ready  to  exploit 
the  new  sensation  right?"  he  suggested,  and  An- 
son nodded. 

"You  can  trust  Harlan  for  that.  He's  got  the 
valley  wire  subsidized,  and  he  is  waiting  for  the 
first  man  to  come  in  with  the  news  of  the  sure 
thing  and  the  location  of  it.  When  he  gets  the 
facts  he'll  touch  off  the  fireworks,  and  the  world 
will  be  invited  to  take  a  running  jump  for  the 
new  Tonopah."  Then,  with  sudden  anxiety:  "I 
wish  to  goodness  Brouillard  would  turn  up  and 
get  busy  on  his  job.  It's  something  hideous  to 
be  stranded  this  way  in  the  thick  of  a  storm!" 

''It's  time  somebody  was  getting  busy,"  snarled 
Handley.  "There  are  a  hundred  tons  of  fresh 
concrete   lying  in  the  forms,  just   as  they  were 

148 


Bedlam 

dumped — with  no  puddlers — to  say  nothing  of 
half  as  much  more  freezing  to  soUd  rock  right 
now  in  the  mixers  and  on  the  telphers." 

Grislow  got  up  and  reached  for  his  coat  and 
hat. 

"I'm  going  out  to  hunt  for  the  boss,"  he  said, 
"and  you  fellows  had  better  do  the  same.  If 
this  is  one  of  Cortwright's  flip-flaps,  and  Brouil- 
lard  happened  to  be  in  the  way,  I  wouldn't  put 
it  beyond  J.  Wesley  to  work  some  kind  of  a  dis- 
appearing racket  on  the  human  obstacle." 

The  suggestion  was  carried  out  immediately  by 
the  three  to  whom  it  was  made,  but  for  a  reason 
of  his  own  the  hydrographer  contrived  to  be  the 
last  to  leave  the  mapping  room.  When  he  found 
himself  alone  he  returned  hastily  to  the  desk  and 
pulled  out  the  drawer  of  portents,  rummaging  in 
it  until  he  was  fully  convinced  that  the  little  buck- 
skin bag  of  nuggets  was  gone.  Then,  instead  of 
following  the  others,  he  took  a  field-glass  from 
its  case  on  the  wall  and  went  to  the  south  window 
to  focus  it  upon  the  Massingale  cabin,  standing 
out  clear-cut  and  distinct  in  the  afternoon  sun- 
light on  its  high,  shelf-like  bench. 

The  powerful  glass  brought  out  two  figures  on 
the  cabin  porch,  a  woman  and  a  man.  The 
woman  was  standing  and  the  man  was  sitting  on 

149 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

the  step.     Grislow  lowered  the  glass  and  slid  the 
telescoping  sun  tubes  home  with  a  snap. 

"Good  God!"  he  mused,  "it's  unbelievable! 
He  deliberately  turns  this  thing  loose  on  us  down 
here  and  then  takes  an  afternoon  off  to  go  and 
make  love  to  a  girl!  He's  crazy;  it's  the  seven- 
year  devil  he  talks  about.  And  nobody  can  help 
him;  nobody — unless  Amy  can.     Lord,  Lord!" 


ISO 


X 

Epochal 

AT  the  other  extremity  of  the  trajectory  of 
-/l.  Grislow's  teUtale  field-glass  Brouillard  was 
sunning  himself  luxuriously  on  the  porch  step  at 
the  Massingale  house  and  making  up  for  lost 
time — counting  all  time  lost  when  it  spelled  ab- 
sence from  the  woman  he  loved.  But  Miss  Mas- 
singale was  in  a  charmingly  frivolous  frame  of 
mind. 

"That  is  the  fourth  different  excuse  you  have 
invented  for  cutting  me  out  of  your  visiting  hst, 
not  counting  the  repetitions,"  she  gibed,  when  he 
had  finally  fallen  back  upon  the  time  demands  of 
his  work  to  account  for  his  late  neglect  of  her. 
*'If  I  wanted  to  be  hateful  I  might  insist  that 
you  haven't  given  the  true  reason  yet." 

"Perhaps  I  will  give  it  before  I  go,"  he  parried. 
*'But  just  now  I'd  much  rather  talk  about  some- 
thing else.  Tell  me  about  yourself.  What  have 
you  been  doing  all  these  days  when  I  haven't 
been  able  to  keep  tab  on  you?" 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"Flirting — flirting  desperately  with  Tig,  with 
Lord  Falkland,  with  Mr.  Anson,  and  Mr.  Grislow, 
and  that  nice  boy  of  yours,  Herbert  Griffith,  and 
with — no,  not  with  Mr.  Leshington;  he  scares  me 
— makes  a  face  like  a  wooden  image  and  says: 
*  Little  girl,  you  need  a  mother — or  a  husband;  I 
haven't  made  up  my  mind  which.'  When  he 
does  make  up  his  mind  I'm  going  to  shriek  and 
run  away." 

"Who  is  Lord  Falkland.^"  demanded  Brouillard, 
ignoring  the  rank  and  file. 

"0-o-h!  Haven't  you  met  him?  He  is  Tig's 
boss.  He  isn't  a  real  lord;  he  is  only  a  'younger 
son.'  But  we  call  him  Lord  Falkland  because  he 
has  no  sense  of  humor  and  is  always  trying  to 
explain.  'Beg  pawdon,  my  deah  Miss  Massin- 
gale,  but  I'm  not  Lord  Falkland,  don't  y'  know. 
The — er — title  goes  with  the — er — entail.  I'm 
only  the  Honorable  Pawcy  Grammont  Penbawthy 
Trevawnnion.'"  Her  mimicry  of  the  Englishman 
was  delicious,  and  Brouillard  laughed  like  a  man 
without  a  care  in  the  world. 

"Where  does  the  Honorable  All-the-rest  keep 
himself?"  he  wished  to  know. 

"He  stays  out  at  the  ranch  in  the  Buckskin 
with  Tig  and  the  range-riders  most  of  the  time,  I 
think.     It's  his  ranch,  you  know,  and  he  is  im- 

152 


Epochal 

mensely  proud  of  it.  He  never  tires  of  telling 
me  about  the  cattle  on  a  thousand  hills,  or  the 
thousand  cattle  on  one  hill,  I  forget  which  it  is." 

"And  you  flirt  with  this — this  alphabetical 
monstrosity!"  he  protested  reproachfully. 

"Honestly,  Victor,  I  don't;  that  was  only  an 
amiable  little  figure  of  speech.  You  simply  cant 
flirt  with  a  somebody  who  is  almost  as  brilliant 
as  a  lump  of  Cornish  tin  ore  and,  oh,  ever  so  many 
times  as  dense." 

"Exit  Lord  Falkland,  who  isn't  Lord  Falkland," 
said  Brouillard.  "Now  tell  me  about  the  'Little 
Susan';  is  the  Blue-grass  farm  looming  up  com- 
fortably on  the  eastern  edge  of  things?" 

In  a  twinkling  her  frivolous  mood  vanished. 

"Oh,  we  are  prosperous,  desperately  prosperous. 
We  have  power  drills,  and  electric  ore-cars,  and  a 
crib,  and  a  chute,  and  a  hoist,  and  an  aerial  tram- 
way down  to  the  place  where  the  railroad  yard  is 
going  to  be — all  the  improvements  you  can  see 
and  a  lot  more  that  you  can't  see.  And  our  pay- 
roll— it  fairly  frightens  me  when  I  make  it  up  on 
the  Saturdays." 

"I  see,"  he  nodded.  "All  going  out  and  noth- 
ing coming  in.  But  the  money  is  all  here,  safely 
stacked  up  in  the  ore  bins.  You'll  get  it  all  out 
when  the  railroad  comes," 

153 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"That  is  another  thing — a  thing  I  haven't 
dared  tell  father  and  Stevie.  When  I  was  in 
Mirapolis  this  morning  I  heard  that  the  railroad 
wasn't  coming,  after  all;  or,  rather,  Tig  had 
heard  it  and  he  told  me.  We  were  digging  for 
facts  when  you  met  us  on  Chigringo  Avenue — 
trying  to  find  out  if  the  rumor  were  true." 

"Did  you  find  out?"  he  asked. 

"Not  positively.  That  is  why  I  left  the  note 
at  your  office  begging  you  to  come  up  if  you 
could  spare  the  time.  I  felt  sure  you  would 
know." 

"It  means  a  great  deal  to  you,  doesn't  it?" 
he  said  evasively. 

"It  means  everything — a  thousand  times  more 
now  than  it  did  before." 

His  quick  glance  up  into  the  suddenly  sobered 
eyes  of  the  girl  standing  on  the  step  above  him 
was  a  voiceless  query  and  she  answered  it. 

"We  had  no  working  capital,  as  I  think  you 
must  have  known.  Once  a  month  father  or 
Stevie  would  make  up  a  few  pack-saddle  loads  of 
the  richest  ore  and  freight  them  over  the  moun- 
tains to  Red  Butte.  That  was  how  we  got  along. 
But  when  you  sent  me  word  by  Tig  that  the  rail- 
road company  had  decided  to  build  the  Exten- 
sion, there  was — there  was — a  chance " 

154 


Epochal 

"Yes,"  he  encouraged. 

"A  chance  that  the  day  of  little  things  was 
past  and  the  day  of  big  things  was  come.  Mr. 
Cortwright  and  some  of  his  associates  had  been 
trying  to  buy  an  interest  in  the  'Little  Susan.' 
Father  let  them  in  on  some  sort  of  a  stock  ar- 
rangement that  I  don't  understand  and  then 
made  himself  personally  responsible  for  a  dread- 
ful lot  of  borrowed  money." 

"Borrowed  of  Mr.  Cortwright?"  queried  Brouil- 
lard. 

"No;  of  the  bank.  Neither  Stevie  nor  I  knew 
about  it  until  after  it  was  done,  and  even  then 
father  wouldn't  explain.  He  has  been  like  a 
man  out  of  his  mind  since  Mr.  Cortwright  got 
hold  of  him — everything  is  rose-colored;  we  are 
going  to  be  immensely  rich  the  minute  the  rail- 
road builds  its  track  to  the  mine  dump.  The  ore 
is  growing  richer  every  day — which  is  true — and 
the  railroad  will  let  us  into  the  smelters  with 
train  loads  of  it.  He  is  crazy  to  build  more  cribs 
and  put  on  night  shifts  of  miners.  But  you  see 
how  it  all  depends  upon  the  railroad." 

"Not  so  much  upon  the  railroad  now  as  upon 
some  other  things,"  said  Brouillard  enigmatically. 
"You  say  your  father  has  borrowed  of  the  bank 
— is  Mr.  Cortwright  mixed  up  in  the  loan  in 
any  way?" 

155 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"Yes;  he  arranged  it  in  some  way  for  father — 
I  don't  know  just  how.  All  I  know  is  that  father 
is  responsible,  and  that  if  the  railroad  doesn't 
come  he  will  lose  everything." 

Brouillard  gave  a  low  whistle.  "I  don't  won- 
der that  the  quitting  rumor  made  you  nervous." 

"It  was,  and  is,  positively  terrifying.  Father 
has  taken  one  of  the  new  houses  in  town  and  we 
are  to  move  down  next  week  in  spite  of  all  I  can 
do  or  say.  That  means  more  expense  and  more 
temptations.  I  can't  tell  you  how  I  hate  and 
dread  Mirapolis.  It  isn't  like  any  other  place  I 
have  ever  known;   it  is  cynical,  vicious,  wicked!" 

"It  is,"  he  agreed  soberly.  "It  couldn't  well 
be  otherwise.  You  tell  a  dozen  men  they've  got 
a  certain  definite  time  to  hve,  and  the  chances 
are  that  two  or  three  of  them  will  begin  to  pre- 
pare to  get  ready  to  be  sorry  for  their  sins.  The 
other  nine  or  ten  will  speed  up  and  burn  the 
candle  right  down  into  the  socket.  We  shall  see 
worse  things  in  Mirapolis  before  we  see  better. 
But  I  think  I  can  lift  one  of  your  burdens.  What 
you  heard  in  town  this  morning  is  a  fact:  the  rail- 
road people  have  stopped  work  on  the  Buckskin 
Extension.  Don't  faint — they  are  going  to  begin 
again  right  away." 

"Oh!"  she  gasped.  "Are  you  sure.''  How  can 
you  be  sure?" 

iS6 


Epochal 

*'rve  given  the  order,"  he  said  gravely.  "An 
order  they  can't  disregard.  Let's  go  back  a  bit 
and  I'll  explain.  Do  you  remember  my  telling 
you  that  your  brother  had  tried  to  bribe  me  to 
use  my  influence  with  Mr.  Ford?" 

"As  if  I  should  ever  be  able  to  forget  it!"  she 
protested. 

"Well,  that  wasn't  all  that  he  did — he  threat- 
ened me — took  me  to  one  of  the  bars  in  the 
Niquoia,  and  let  me  prove  for  myself  that  it  was 
tolerably  rich  placer  ground.  The  threat  was  a 
curious  one.  If  I'd  say  the  right  thing  to  Presi- 
dent Ford,  well  and  good;  if  not,  your  brother 
would  disarrange  things  for  the  government  by 
giving  away  the  secret  of  the  gold  placers.  It 
was  ingenious,  and  effective.  To  turn  the  valley 
into  a  placer  camp  would  be  to  disorganize  our 
working  force,  temporarily  at  least,  and  in  the 
end  it  might  even  stop  or  definitely  postpone  the 
building  of  the  dam." 

She  was  listening  eagerly,  but  there  was  a 
nameless  fear  in  the  steadfast  eyes — a  shadow 
which  he  either  missed  or  disregarded. 

"Naturally,  I  saw,  or  thought  I  saw,  a  good 
reason  why  he  should  hesitate  to  carry  out  his 
threat,"  Brouillard  went  on.  "The  placer  find, 
with  whatever  profit  might  be  got  out  of  it,  was 

157 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

his  only  so  long  as  he  kept  the  secret.  But  he 
covered  that  point  at  once;  he  said  that  the 
'Little  Susan* — with  the  railroad — was  worth 
more  to  him  and  to  your  father  than  a  chance 
at  the  placer-diggings.  The  ore  dump  with  its 
known  values  was  a  sure  thing,  while  the  sluice 
mining  was  always  a  gamble." 

"And  you — you  believed  all  this?"  she  asked 
faintly. 

"I  was  compelled  to  believe  it.  He  let  me 
pan  out  the  proof  for  myself;  a  heaping  spoonful 
of  nuggets  and  grain  gold  in  a  few  panfuls  of  the 
sand.  It  pretty  nearly  turned  my  head,  Amy; 
would  have  turned  it,  I'm  afraid,  if  Steve  hadn't 
explained  that  the  bar,  as  a  whole,  wouldn't  run 
as  rich  as  the  sample." 

"It  is  dreadful — dreadful!"  she  murmured. 
*'You  believed  him,  and  for  that  reason  you  used 
your  influence  with  Mr.  Ford?" 

"No." 

"But  you  did  advise  Mr.  Ford  to  build  the 
Extension?" 

"Yes." 

"Believing  that  it  was  for  the  best  interests  of 
the  railroad  to  come  here?" 

"No;  doubting  it  very  much,  indeed." 

"Then  why  did  you  do  it?  I  must  know;  it  is 
my  right  to  know." 

158 


Epochal 

He  got  up  and  took  her  in  his  arms,  and  she 
suffered  him. 

"A  few  days  ago,  little  girl,  I  couldn't  have 
told  you.  But  now  I  can.  I  am  a  free  man — or 
I  can  be  whenever  I  choose  to  say  the  word. 
You  ask  me  why  I  pulled  for  the  railroad;  I  did 
it  for  love's  sake." 

She  was  pushing  him  away,  and  the  great 
horror  in  her  eyes  was  unmistakable  now. 

*'Ohl"  she  panted,  "is  love  a  thing  to  be  cheap- 
ened like  that — to  be  sinned  for?" 

"Why,  Amy,  girl!  What  do  you  mean?  I 
don't  understand " 

"That  is  it,  Victor;  you  dont  understand. 
You  deUberately  sacrificed  your  convictions;  you 
have  admitted  it.  And  you  did  it  in  the  sacred 
name  of  love!  And  your  freedom — how  have 
you  made  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  these 
few  weeks?     Oh,  Victor,  is  it  clean  money?" 

He  was  abashed,  confounded;  and  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  tangle  of  conflicting  emotions  there  was 
a  dull  glow  of  resentment. 

"The  'sacrifice,'  as  you  call  it,  was  made  for 
you,"  he  said,  ignoring  her  question  about  the 
money.  "I  merely  told  Mr.  Ford  what  I  should 
do  if  the  decision  lay  wholly  with  me.  That  is 
what  he  asked  for — my  personal  opinion.  And 
he  got  it." 

159 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"Yes;  but  when  you  gave  it  .  .  .  did  you 
say:  'Mr.  Ford,  there  is  a  girl  up  at  the  "Little 
Susan"  mine  on  Chigringo  Mountain  who  needs 
your  railroad  to  help  her  out  of  her  troubles. 
Because  I  love  the  girl' " 

"Of  course  I  didn't  say  any  such  suicidal  thing 
as  that!  But  it  is  too  late  to  raise  the  question 
of  culpability  in  the  matter  of  giving  Ford  what 
he  asked  for.  I  did  it,  as  I  say — for  love  of  you, 
Amy;  and  now  I  have  done  a  much  more  serious 
thing — for  the  same  good  reason." 

"Tell  me,"  she  said,  with  a  quick  catching  of 
her  breath. 

"Your  brother  put  a  weapon  in  my  hands,  and 
I  have  used  it.  There  was  one  sure  way  to  make 
the  railroad  people  get  busy  again.  They  couldn't 
sit  still  if  all  the  world  were  trying  to  get  to  a 
new  gold  camp,  to  which  they  already  have  a 
line  graded  and  nearly  ready  for  the  steel." 

"And  you  have ?" 

He  nodded. 

"I  had  Levy  put  the  spoonful  of  nuggets  in  his 
window,  with  a  placard  stating  that  it  was  taken 
out  of  a  bar  in  the  Niquoia.  When  I  left  the  office 
to  come  up  here  the  whole  town  was  blocking  the 
street  in  front  of  Levy's." 

She  had  retreated  to  take  her  former  position, 
1 60 


Epochal 

leaning  against  the  porch  post,  with  her  hands 
behind  her,  and  she  had  grown  suddenly  calm. 

"You  did  this  deliberately,  Victor,  weighing  all 
the  consequences?  Mirapolis  is  already  a  city  of 
frenzied  knaves  and  dupes;  did  you  realize  that 
you  were  taking  the  chance  of  turning  it  into  a 
wicked  pandemonium?  Oh,  I  can't  beheve  you 
did!" 

"Don't  look  at  me  that  way.  Amy,"  he  pleaded. 
Then  he  went  on,  with  curious  little  pauses  be- 
tween the  words:  "Perhaps  I  didn't  think — didn't 
care;  you  wanted  something — and  I  wanted  to 
give  it  to  you.  That  was  all — as  God  hears  me, 
it  was  all.  There  was  another  thing  that  might 
have  weighed,  but  I  didn't  let  it  weigh;  I  stood 
to  lose  the  money  that  will  set  me  free — I  could 
have  lost  it  without  wincing — I  told  Cortwright 
so.  You  believe  that.  Amy?  It  will  break  my 
heart  if  you  don't  believe  it." 

She  shook  her  head  sadly. 

"You  have  thrown  down  another  of  the  ideals, 
and  this  time  it  was  mine.  You  don't  under- 
stand, and  I  can't  make  you  understand — that  is 
the  keen  misery  of  it.  If  this  ruthless  thing  you 
tried  to  do  had  succeeded,  I  should  be  the  most 
wretched  woman  in  the  world." 

"If  it  had  succeeded?  It  has  succeeded. 
i6i 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

Didn't  I  say  just  now  that  the  town  was  crazy 
with  excitement  when  I  left  to  come  up  here?" 

The  girl  was  shaking  her  head  again. 

"God  sometimes  saves  us  in  spite  of  ourselves," 
she  said  gravely.  "The  excitement  will  die  out. 
There  are  no  placers  in  the  Niquoia.  The  bars 
have  been  prospected  again  and  again." 

"They  have  been? " 

Brouillard  turned  on  his  heel  and  choked  back 
the  sudden  malediction  that  rose  to  his  lips.  She 
had  called  Mirapolis  a  city  of  knaves  and  dupes; 
surely,  he  himself  was  the  simplest  of  the 
dupes. 

"I  see — after  so  long  a  time,"  he  went  on. 
"Your  brother  merely  'salted'  a  few  shovelfuls  of 
sand  for  my  especial  benefit.  Great  Heavens, 
but  I  was  an  easy  mark!" 

"Don't!"  she  cried,  and  the  tears  in  her  voice 
cut  him  to  the  heart — "don't  make  it  harder  for 
me  than  it  has  to  be.  I  have  told  you  only  what 
I've  heard  my  father  say,  time  and  again:  that 
there  is  no  gold  in  the  Niquoia  River.  And  you 
mustn't  ask  me  to  despise  my  brother.  He  fights 
his  way  to  his  ends  without  caring  much  for  the 
consequences  to  others;  but  tell  me — haven't  you 
been  doing  the  same  thing.?" 

"I  have,"  he  confessed  stubbornly.     "My  love 
162 


Epochal 

isn't  measured  by  a  fear  of  consequences — to  my- 
self or  others." 

"That  is  the  hopeless  part  of  it,"  she  returned 
drearily. 

"Yet  you  condone  in  your  brother  what  you 
condemn  in  me,"  he  complained. 

"My  brother  is  my  brother;  and  you  are — 
Let  me  tell  you  something,  Victor:  God  helping 
me,  I  shall  be  no  man's  evil  genius,  and  yours 
least  of  all.  You  broke  down  the  barriers  a  few 
minutes  ago  and  you  know  what  is  in  my  heart. 
But  I  can  take  it  out  of  my  heart  if  the  man  who 
put  it  there  is  not  true  to  himself." 

Brouillard  was  silent  for  a  little  space,  and 
when  he  spoke  again  it  was  as  one  awaking  from 
a  troubled  dream. 

"I  know  what  you  would  do  and  say;  you 
would  take  me  by  the  hand  and  tell  me  to  come 
up  higher.  .  .  .  There  was  a  time.  Amy,  when 
you  wouldn't  have  had  to  say  it  twice — a  time 
when  the  best  there  was  in  me  would  have 
leaped  to  climb  to  any  height  you  pointed  to. 
The  time  is  past,  and  I  can't  recall  it,  try  as  I 
may;  there  is  a  change;  it  goes  back  to  that  day 
when  I  first  saw  you — down  at  the  lower  ford  in 
the  desert's  edge.  I  loved  you  then,  though  I 
wouldn't  admit  it  even  to  myself.  But  that 
-r,  163 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

wasn't  the  change;  it  was  something  different. 
Do  you  believe  in  Freiborg's  theory  of  the  mul- 
tiple personality?  I  saw  his  book  in  your  ham- 
mock one  day  when  I  was  up  here." 

"No,"  she  said  quite  definitely.  "I  am  I, 
and  I  am  always  I.  For  the  purposes  of  the 
comedy  we  call  life,  we  play  many  parts,  perhaps; 
but  back  of  the  part-playing  there  is  always  the 
same  soul  person,  I  think — and  believe." 

"I  know;  that  is  common  sense  and  sanity. 
And  yet  Freiborg's  speculations  are  most  plausi- 
ble. He  merely  carries  the  idea  of  the  dual  person- 
ality— the  Doctor  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde  notion — 
a  step  farther  along.  You  may  remember  how 
he  compares  the  human  being  to  a  ship  changing 
commanders  at  every  port.  One  captain  makes 
her  a  merchantman;  another  makes  her  a  tramp; 
a  third  turns  her  into  a  slaver  or  a  pirate;  under 
a  fourth  she  becomes  a  derehct." 

"That  is  a  terribly  dangerous  theory,  if  you 
take  it  seriously,"  was  her  comment. 

"I  don't  want  to  take  it  seriously.  But  facts 
are  stubborn  things.  I  am  not  the  same  man  I 
was  a  few  years  or  even  a  few  months  ago.  I 
have  lost  something;  I  have  not  the  same  prompt- 
ings; things  that  I  used  to  loathe  no  longer  shock 
me.     New  and  unsuspected  pitfalls  open  for  me 

164 


Epochal 

every  day.  For  example,  I  am  not  naturally 
hot-headed — or  rather,  I  should  say,  I  am  quick- 
tempered but  have  always  been  able  to  con- 
trol myself.  Yet  in  the  past  few  months  I  have 
learned  what  it  means  to  fly  into  a  rage  that 
fairly  makes  me  see  red.  And  there  is  no  cause. 
Nothing  different  has  broken  into  my  Hfe  save 
the  best  of  all  things — a  great  love.  And  you 
tell  me  that  the  love  is  unworthy." 

"No,  I  didn't  say  that;  I  only  meant  that  you 
had  misconceived  it.  Love  is  the  truest,  finest 
thing  we  know.  It  can  never  be  the  tool  of  evil, 
much  less  the  hand  that  guides  the  tool.  Given 
a  free  field,  it  always  makes  for  the  wider  horizons, 
the  higher  planes  of  thought  and  action;  it  may 
even  breathe  new  life  into  the  benumbed  con- 
science. I  don't  say  that  it  can't  be  dragged  down 
and  trampled  in  the  dust  and  the  mire;  it  can 
be,  and  then  there  is  nothing  more  pitiful  in  a 
world  of  misconceptions." 

Again  a  silence  came  and  sat  between  them; 
and,  as  before,  it  was  the  man  who  broke  it. 

"You  lead  me  to  a  conclusion  that  I  refuse  to 
accept.  Amy;  that  I  am  dominated  by  some  in- 
fluence which  is  stronger  than  love." 

"You  are,"  she  said  simply. 

"What  is  it?" 

165 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

''Environment." 

"That  is  the  most  humiliating  thing  you  have 
said  to-day.  Is  a  man  a  mere  bit  of  driftwood, 
to  be  tossed  about  in  the  froth  of  any  wave  that 
happens  to  come  along,  as  Freiborg  says  he  is?" 

"Not  always;  perhaps  not  often.  And  never, 
I  think,  in  the  best  part  of  him — the  soul  ego. 
Yet  there  is  a  mighty  power  in  the  wave,  in  the 
mere  drift.  However  much  others  may  be  de- 
luded, I  am  sure  you  can  see  Mirapolis  in  its  true 
light.  It  is  frankly,  baldly,  the  money-making 
scheme  of  a  few  unscrupulous  men.  It  has  no 
future — it  can  have  none.  And  because  it  is 
what  it  is,  the  very  air  you  breathe  down  there  is 
poisoned.  The  taint  is  in  the  blood.  Mr.  Cort- 
wright  and  his  fellow  bandits  call  it  the  'Miracle 
City,'  but  the  poor  wretches  on  lower  Chigringo 
Avenue  laugh  and  call  it  Gomorrah." 

"Just  at  the  present  moment  it  Is  a  city  of 
fools — and  I,  the  king  of  the  fools,  have  made  it 
so,"  said  Brouillard  gloomily.  From  his  seat  on 
the  porch  step  he  was  frowning  down  upon  the 
outspread  scene  in  the  valley,  where  the  tri- 
angular shadow  of  Jack's  Mountain  was  creeping 
slowly  across  to  the  foot  of  Chigringo.  Some- 
thing in  the  measured  eye-sweep  brought  him  to 
his  feet  with  a  hasty  exclamation: 

i66 


Epochal 

"Good  Lord!  the  machinery  has  stopped! 
They've    knocked   off  work   on   the   dam!" 

"Why  not?"  she  said.  "Did  you  imagine  that 
your  workmen  were  any  less  human  than  other 

people?" 

"No,  of  course  not;  that  is,  I— but  I  haven't 
any  time  to  go  into  that  now.  Is  your  telephone 
Hne  up  here  in  operation?" 

"No,  not  yet." 

"Then  I  must  burn  the  wind  getting  down  there. 
By  Jove!  if  those  unspeakable  idiots  have  gone 
off  and  left  the  concrete  to  freeze  wherever  it 
happens  to  be 

"One  moment,"  she  pleaded,  while  he  was 
reaching  for  his  hat.  "This  new  madness  will 
have  spent  itself  by  nightfall— it  must.  And  yet 
I  have  the  queerest  shivery  feeling,  as  if  some- 
thing dreadful  were  going  to  happen.  Can't  you 
contrive  to  get  word  to  me,  some  way — after  it  is 
all  over?     I  wish  you  could." 

"I'll  do  it,"  he  promised.  "I'll  come  up  after 
supper." 

"No,  don't  do  that.  You  will  be  needed  at  the 
dam.  There  will  be  trouble,  with  a  town  full  of 
disappointed  gold-hunters,  and  liquor  to  be  had. 
Wait  a  minute."  She  ran  into  the  house  and 
came   out   with    two   little    paper-covered    cylin- 

167 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

ders  with  fuses  projecting.  *'Take  these,  they  are 
Bengal  lights — some  of  the  fireworks  that  Tig 
bought  in  Red  Butte  for  the  Fourth.  Light  the 
blue  one  when  you  are  ready  to  send  me  my 
message  of  cheer.     I  shall  be  watching  for  it." 

"And  the  other?"  he  asked. 

"It  is  a  red  light,  the  signal  of  war  and  tumults 
and  danger.     If  you  light  it,  I  shall  know " 

He  nodded,  dropped  the  paper  cylinders  into 
his  pocket,  and  a  moment  later  was  racing  down 
the  trail  to  take  his  place  at  the  helm  of  the 
abandoned  ship  of  the  industries. 

There  was  need  for  a  commander;  for  a  cool 
head  to  bring  order  out  of  chaos,  and  for  the  rare 
faculty  which  is  able  to  accompHsh  Herculean 
tasks  with  whatever  means  lie  at  hand.  Brouil- 
lard  descended  upon  his  disheartened  subordinates 
like  a  whirlwind  of  invincible  energy,  electrify- 
ing everybody  into  instant  action.  Gassman  was 
told  off  to  bring  the  Indians,  who  alone  were 
loyally  indifferent  to  the  gold  craze,  down  from 
the  crushers.  Anson  was  despatched  to  impress 
the  waiters  and  bell-boys  from  the  Metropole; 
Leshington  was  sent  to  the  shops  and  the  bank  to 
turn  out  the  clerks;  Grislow  and  Handley  were 
ordered  to  take  charge  of  the  makeshift  concrete 
handlers  as  fast  as  they  materialized,  squadding 

i68 


Epochal 

them  and  driving  the  work  of  wreck  clearing  for 
every  man  and  minute  they  could  command,  with 
Gassman  and  Bender  to  act  as  foremen. 

For  himself,  Brouillard  reserved  the  most  haz- 
ardous of  the  recruiting  expedients.  The  lower 
Avenue  had  already  become  a  double  rank  of 
dives,  saloons,  and  gambling  dens;  here,  if  any- 
where in  the  craze-depopulated  town,  men  might 
be  found,  and  for  once  in  their  lives  they  should 
be  shown  how  other  men  earned  money. 

"Shove  it  for  every  minute  of  daylight  there  is 
left,"  he  ordered,  snapping  out  his  commands  to 
his  staff  while  he  was  filling  the  magazine  of  his 
Winchester.  "Puddle  what  material  there  is  in 
the  forms,  dump  the  telpher  buckets  where  they 
stand,  and  clean  out  the  mixers;  that's  the  size  of 
the  job,  and  it's  got  to  be  done.  Jump  to  it, 
Grizzy,  you  and  Handley,  and  we'll  try  to  fill 
your  gangs  the  best  way  we  can.  Leshington, 
don't  you  take  any  refusal  from  the  shopkeepers 
and  the  bank  people;  if  they  kick,  you  tell  them 
that  not  another  dollar  of  government  money  w411 
be  spent  in  this  town — we'll  run  a  free  commissary 
first.  Anson,  you  make  Bongras  turn  out  every 
man  in  his  feeding  place;  he'll  do  it.  Griffith, 
you  chase  Mr.  Cortwright,  and  don't  quit  till  you 
find  him.     Tell  him  from  me  that  we've  got  to 

169 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

have  every  man  he  can  give  us,  at  whatever 
cost. 

"You'll  be  up  on  the  stagings  yourself,  won't 
you?"  asked  Grislow,  struggling  into  his  work- 
ing-coat, 

"After  a  bit.  I'm  going  down  to  the  lower 
Avenue  to  turn  out  the  crooks  and  diamond 
wearers.  It's  time  they  were  learning  how  to 
earn  an  honest  dollar." 

"You'll  get  yourself  killed  up,"  grumbled  Lesh- 
ington.  "Work  is  the  one  thing  you  won't  get 
out  of  that  crowd." 

"Watch  me,"  rasped  the  chief,  and  he  was  gone 
as  soon  as  he  had  said  it. 

Strange  things  and  strenuous  happened  in  the 
lower  end  of  the  Niquoia  valley  during  the  few 
hours  of  daylight  that  remained.  First,  climb- 
ing nervously  to  the  puddlers'  staging  on  the 
great  dam,  and  led  by  near-Napoleon  Poodles 
himself,  came  the  Metropole  quota  of  waiters, 
scullions,  cooks,  and  porters,  willing  but  skilless. 
After  them,  and  herded  by  Leshington,  came  a 
dapper  crew  of  office  men  and  clerks  to  snatch  up 
the  puddling  spades  and  to  soil  their  clothes  and 
blister  their  hands  in  emptying  the  concrete 
buckets.  Mr.  Cortwright's  contribution  came  as 
a   dropping   fire;  a   handful  of  tree-cutters   from 

170 


Epochal 

the  sawmills,  a  few  men  picked  up  here  and  there 
in  the  deserted  town,  an  automobile  load  of  power- 
company  employees  shot  down  from  the  generat- 
ing plant  at  racing  speed. 

Last,  but  by  no  means  least  in  numbers,  came 
the  human  derelicts  from  the  lower  Avenue; 
men  in  frock-coats;  men  in  cow-boy  jeans  taking 
it  as  a  huge  joke;  men  with  foreign  faces  and 
lowering  brows  and  with  strange  oaths  in  their 
mouths;  and  behind  the  motley  throng  and 
marshalling  it  to  a  quickstep,  Brouillard  and  Tig 
Smith. 

It  was  hot  work  and  heavy  for  the  strangely 
assorted  crew,  and  Brouillard  drove  it  to  the  limit, 
bribing,  cajoHng,  or  threatening,  patroUing  the 
long  line  of  staging  to  encourage  the  awkward 
puddlers,  or  side-stepping  swiftly  to  the  mixers 
to  bring  back  a  detachment  of  skulkers  at  the 
rifle's  muzzle.  And  by  nightfall  the  thing  was 
done,  with  the  loss  reduced  to  a  minimum  and 
the  makeshift  laborers  dropping  out  in  squads 
and  groups,  some  laughing,  some  swearing,  and 
all  too  weary  and  toil-worn  to  be  dangerous. 
"Give  us  a  job  if  we  come  back  to-morrow,  Mr. 
Brouillard.?"  called  out  the  king  of  the  gamblers 
in  passing;  and  the  cry  was  taken  up  by  others 
in  grim  jest. 

171 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"Thus  endeth  the  first  lesson,"  said  Grislow, 
when  the  engineering  corps  was  reassembhng  at 
the  headquarters  preparatory  to  a  descent  upon 
the  supper-table.  But  Brouillard  was  dumb  and 
haggard,  and  when  he  had  hung  rifle  and  cartridge- 
belt  on  their  pegs  behind  his  desk,  he  went  out, 
leaving  unbroken  the  silence  which  had  greeted 
his  entrance. 

"The  boss  is  taking  it  pretty  hard,"  said  young 
Griffith  to  no  one  in  particular,  and  it  was  Lesh- 
ington  who  took  him  up  savagely  and  invited 
him  to  hold  his  tongue. 

"The  least  said  is  the  soonest  mended — at  a 
funeral,"  was  the  form  the  first  assistant's  rebuke 
took.  "You  take  my  advice  and  don't  mess  or 
meddle  with  the  chief  until  he's  had  time  to  work 
this  thing  out  of  his  system." 

Brouillard  was  working  it  out  in  his  own  way, 
tramping  the  streets,  hanging  on  the  outskirts  of 
arguing  groups  of  newsmongers,  or  listening  to 
the  bonanza  talk  of  the  loungers  in  the  Metropole 
lobby.  Soon  after  dark  the  gold-seekers  began 
to  drop  in,  by  twos  and  threes  and  in  squads,  all 
with  the  same  story  of  disappointment.  By  nine 
o'clock  the  town  was  full  of  them,  and  since  the 
liquor  was  flowing  freely  across  many  bars,  the 
mutterings  of  disappointment  soon  swelled  to  a 

172 


Epochal 

thunder  roar  of  drunken  rage,  with  the  unknown 
exhibitor  of  the  specimen  nuggets  for  its  object. 
From  threats  of  vengeance  upon  the  man  who  had 
hoaxed  an  entire  town  to  a  frenzied  search  for 
the  man  was  but  a  step,  and  when  Brouillard 
finally  left  the  Metropole  and  crossed  over  to  his 
office  quarters,  the  mob  was  hunting  riotously  for 
the  jeweller  Levy  and  promising  to  hang  him — 
when  found — to  the  nearest  wire  pole  if  he  should 
not  confess  the  name  and  standing  of  his  gold- 
bug. 

The  shouts  of  the  mob  were  ringing  in  Brouil- 
lard's  ears  when  he  strode  dejectedly  into  the  de- 
serted map  room,  and  the  cries  were  rising  with 
a  new  note  and  in  fresher  frenzies  a  little  later 
when  Grislow  came  in.  The  hydrographer's  blue 
eyes  were  hard  and  his  voice  had  a  tang  of  bitter- 
ness in  it  when  he  said:  "Well,  you've  done  it. 
Three  men  have  just  come  in  with  a  double 
handful  of  nuggets,  and  Mirapolis  makes  its  bow 
to  the  world  at  large  as  the  newest  and  richest  of 
the  gold  camps." 

Brouillard  had  been  humped  over  his  desk,  and 
he  sprang  up  with  a  cry  Hke  that  of  a  wounded 
animal. 

"It  can't  be;  Grizzy,  I  tell  you  it  can't  be! 
Steve  Massingale  planted  that  gold  that  I  washed 

173 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

out — played  me  for  a  fool  to  get  me  to  work  for 
the  railroad.     I  didn't  know  it  until — until " 

"Until  Amy  Massingale  told  you  about  it  this 
afternoon,"  cut  in  the  map-maker  shrewdly. 
"That's  all  right.  The  bar  Steve  took  you  to 
was  barren  enough;  they  tell  me  that  every  cubic 
foot  of  it  has  been  washed  over  in  dish  pans  and 
skillets  in  the  past  few  hours.  But  you  know 
the  big  bend  opposite  the  Quadjenai  Hills;  the 
river  has  built  that  bend  out  of  its  own  wash- 
ings, and  the  bulletin  over  at  the  Spot-Light  office 
says  that  the  entire  peninsula  is  one  huge  bank  of 
gold-bearing  gravel." 

At  the  word  Brouillard  staggered  as  from  the 
impact  of  a  bullet.  Then  he  crossed  the  room 
slowly,  groping  his  way  toward  the  peg  where 
the  coat  he  had  worn  in  the  afternoon  was  hang- 
ing. Grislow  saw  him  take  something  out  of  the 
pocket  of  the  coat,  and  the  next  moment  the  door 
opened  and  closed  and  the  hydrographer  was  left 
alone. 

Having  been  planned  before  there  was  a  city 
to  be  considered,  the  government  buildings  en- 
closed three  sides  of  a  small  open  square,  facing 
toward  the  great  dam.  In  the  middle  of  this  open 
space  Brouillard  stopped,  kicked  up  a  little 
mound  of  earth,  and  stood  the  two  paper  cylin- 
ders on  it,  side  by  side. 

174 


Epochal 

The  tempered  glow  from  the  city  electrics  made 
a  soft  twilight  in  the  little  plaza;  he  could  see  the 
wrapper  colors  of  the  two  signal-fires  quite  well. 
A  sharp  attack  of  indecision  had  prompted  him 
to  place  both  of  them  on  the  tiny  mound.  With 
the  match  in  his  hand,  he  was  still  undecided. 
Amy  Massingale's  words  came  back  to  him  as  he 
hesitated:  "Light  the  blue  one  when  you  are 
ready  to  send  me  my  message  of  cheer.  .  .  ." 
On  the  lips  of  another  woman  the  words  might 
have  taken  a  materialistic  meaning;  the  mirac- 
ulous gold  discovery  would  bring  the  railroad,  and 
the  railroad  would  rescue  the  Massingale  mine 
and  restore  the  Massingale  fortunes. 

He  looked  up  at  the  dark  bulk  of  Chigringo, 
unrelieved  even  by  the  tiny  fleck  of  lamplight 
which  he  had  so  often  called  his  guiding  star. 
"Take  me  out  of  your  mind  and  heart  and  say 
which  you  will  have,  little  girl,"  he  whispered, 
sending  the  words  out  into  the  void  of  night. 
But  only  the  din  and  clamor  of  a  city  gone  wild 
with  enthusiasm  came  to  answer  him.  Some- 
where on  the  Avenue  a  band  was  playing;  men 
were  shouting  themselves  hoarse  in  excitement, 
and  above  the  shouting  came  the  staccato  crack- 
ling of  pistols  and  guns  fired  in  air. 

He  struck  the  match  and  stooped  over  the  blue 

175 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

cylinder.  "This  is  your  message  of  cheer,  whether 
you  take  it  that  way  or  not,"  he  went  on,  whisper- 
ing again  to  the  silent  void.  But  when  the  fuse 
of  the  blue  light  was  fairly  fizzing,  he  suddenly 
pinched  it  out  and  held  the  match  to  the  other. 

Up  on  the  high  bench  of  the  great  mountain 
Amy  Massingale  was  pacing  to  and  fro  on  the 
puncheon-floored  porch  of  the  home  cabin.  Her 
father  had  gone  to  bed,  and  somewhere  down 
among  the  electric  lights  starring  the  valley  her 
brother  was  mingling  with  the  excited  mobs 
whose  shoutings  and  gun-firings  floated  up, 
distance-softened,  on  the  still,  thin  air  of  the 
summer  night. 

Though  there  was  no  pause  in  the  monotonous 
pacing  back  and  forth,  the  girl's  gaze  never 
wandered  far  from  a  dark  area  in  the  western 
edge  of  the  town — the  semicircle  cut  into  the 
dotting  lights  and  marking  the  site  of  the  govern- 
ment reservation.  It  was  when  a  tiny  stream  of 
sparks  shot  up  in  the  centre  of  the  dark  area  that 
she  stopped  and  held  her  breath.  Then,  when  a 
blinding  flare  followed  to  prick  out  the  head- 
quarters, the  commissary,  and  the  mess  house, 
she  sank  in  a  despairing  little  heap  on  the  floor, 
with  her  face  hidden  in  her  hands  and  the  quick 

176 


Epochal 

sobs  shaking  her  like  an  ague  chill.  It  was  Brouil- 
lard's  signal,  but  it  was  not  the  signal  of  peace; 
it  was  the  blood-red  token  of  revolution  and  strife 
and  turmoil. 


177 


XI 

The  Feast  of  Hurrahs 

MIRAPOLIS  the  marvellous  was  a  hustling, 
roaring,  wide-open  mining-camp  of  twenty 
thousand  souls  by  the  time  the  railroad,  straining 
every  nerve  and  crowding  three  shifts  into  the 
twenty-four-hour  day,  pushed  its  rails  along  the 
foot-hill  bench  of  Chigringo,  tossed  up  its  tem- 
porary station  buildings,  and  signalled  its  opening 
for  business  by  running  a  mammoth  excursion 
from  the  cities  of  the  immediate  East. 

Busy  as  it  was,  the  city  took  time  to  celebrate 
fittingly  the  event  which  linked  it  to  the  outer 
world.  By  proclamation  Mayor  Cortwright  de- 
clared a  holiday.  There  were  lavish  displays  of 
bunting,  an  impromptu  trades  parade,  speeches 
from  the  plaza  band-stand,  free  lunches  and  free 
liquor — a  day  of  boisterous,  hilarious  triumphings, 
with,  incidentally,  much  buying  and  selling  and 
many  transfers  of  the  precious  "front  foot"  or 
choice  "corner." 

Yielding  to  pressure,  which  was  no  less  impera- 
tive from  below  than  from  above,  Brouillard  had 

178 


The  Feast  of  Hurrahs 

consented  to  suspend  work  on  the  great  dam  dur- 
ing the  day  of  triumphs,  and  the  Reclamation- 
Service  force,  smaller  now  than  at  any  time  since 
the  beginning  of  the  undertaking,  went  to  swell 
the  crowds  in  Chigringo  Avenue. 

Of  the  engineering  staff  Grislow  alone  held 
aloof.  Early  in  the  morning  he  trudged  away 
with  rod  and  trout-basket  for  the  upper  waters  of 
the  Niquoia  and  was  seen  no  more.  But  the 
other  members  of  the  staff,  following  the  example 
set  by  the  chief,  took  part  in  the  hilarities,  serv- 
ing on  committees,  conducting  crowds  of  sight- 
seers through  the  government  reservation  and 
up  to  the  mixers  and  stagings,  and  otherwise  iden- 
tifying themselves  so  closely  with  the  civic  cele- 
bration as  to  give  the  impression,  often  com- 
mented upon  by  the  visitors,  that  the  building  of 
the  great  dam  figured  only  as  another  expression 
of  the  Mirapolitan  activities. 

For  himself,  Brouillard  vaguely  envied  Grislow 
the  solitudes  of  the  upper  Niquoia.  But  Mr. 
Cortwright  had  been  inexorable.  It  was  right 
and  fitting  that  the  chief  executive  of  the  Reclama- 
tion Service  should  have  a  part  in  the  rejoicings, 
and  Brouillard  found  himself  discomfortingly  em- 
phasized as  chairman  of  the  civic  reception  com- 
mittee.    Expostulation   was    useless.     Mr.    Cort- 

179 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

Wright  insisted  genially,  and  Miss  Genevieve 
added  her  word.  And  there  had  been  only  Gris- 
low  to  smile  cynically  when  the  printed  pro- 
grammes appeared  with  the  chief  of  the  Buck- 
skin reclamation  project  down  for  an  address  on 
"Modern  City  Building." 

It  was  after  his  part  of  the  speechmaking,  and 
while  the  plaza  crowds  were  still  bellowing  their 
approval  of  the  modest  forensic  effort,  that  he 
went  to  sit  beside  Miss  Cortwright  in  the  tem- 
porary grand-stand,  mopping  his  face  and  other- 
wise exhibiting  the  after  effects  of  the  unfamiliar 
strain. 

"I  didn't  know  you  could  be  so  convincing," 
was  Miss  Genevieve's  comment.  "It  was  splen- 
did !  Nobody  will  ever  believe  that  you  are  going 
to  go  on  building  your  dam  and  threatening  to 
drown  us,  after  this." 

"What  did  I  say?"  queried  Brouillard,  having, 
at  the  moment,  only  the  haziest  possible  idea  of 
what  he  had  said. 

"As  if  you  didn't  know!"  she  laughed.  "You 
congratulated  everybody:  us  Mirapolitans  upon 
our  near-city,  the  miners  on  their  gold  output, 
the  manufacturers  on  their  display  in  the  parade, 
the  railroad  on  its  energy  and  progressive  spirit, 
and   the  visitors  on  their  perspicuity   and   good 

1 80 


The  Feast  of  Hurrahs 

sense  in  coming  to  see  the  latest  of  the  seven 
wonders  of  the  modern  world.  And  the  funny- 
thing  about  it  is  that  you  didn't  say  a  single 
word  about  the  Niquoia  dam." 

"Didn't  I.''  That  shows  how  completely  your 
father  has  converted  me,  how  helplessly  I  am  car- 
ried along  on  the  torrent  of  events." 

"But  you  are  not,"  she  said  accusingly.  "Deep 
down  in  your  inner  consciousness  you  don't  be- 
lieve a  little  bit  in  Mirapolis.  You  are  only  play- 
ing the  game  with  the  rest  of  us,  Mr.  Brouillard. 
Sometimes  I  am  puzzled  to  know  why." 

Brouillard's  smile  was  rather  grim. 

"Your  father  would  probably  tell  you  that  I 
have  a  stake  in  the  game — as  everybody  else 
has." 

"Not  Mr.  Grislow?"  she  said,  laying  her  finger 
inerrantly  upon  the  single  exception. 

"No,  not  Grizzy;  I  forgot  him." 

"Doesn't  he  want  to  make  money?"  she  asked, 
with  exactly  the  proper  shade  of  disinterest. 

"No;  yes,  I  guess  he  does,  too.  But  he  is — er 
— well,  I  suppose  you  might  call  him  a  man  of 
one  idea." 

"Meaning  that  he  is  too  uncompromisingly 
honest  to  be  one  of  us?     I  think  you  are  right." 

Gorman,  Mr.  Cortwright's  ablest  trumpeter  in 
i8i 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

the  real-estate  booming,  was  holding  the  plaza 
crowd  spellbound  with  his  enthusiastic  periods, 
rising  upon  his  toes  and  lifting  his  hands  in  angel 
gestures  to  high  heaven  in  confirmation  of  his 
prophetic  outlining  of  the  Mirapolitan  future. 

In  the  middle  distance,  and  backgrounding  the 
buildings  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  plaza,  rose 
the  false  work  of  the  great  dam— a  standing  forest 
of  sawed  timbers,  whose  afternoon  shadows  were 
already  pointing  like  a  many-fingered  fate  to- 
ward the  city  of  the  plain.  But,  though  the  face 
of  the  speaker  was  toward  the  shadowing  forest, 
his  words  ignored  it.  "The  snow-capped  Tim- 
anyonis,"  "the  mighty  Chigringo,"  and  "the 
golden-veined  slopes  of  Jack's  Mountain"  all 
came  in  for  eulogistic  mention;  but  the  massive 
wall  of  concrete,  with  its  bristling  parapet  of  tim- 
bers, had  no  part  in  the  orator's  flamboyant  de- 
scriptive. 

Brouillard  broke  the  spell  of  the  grandiloquent 
rantings,  and  came  back  to  what  Miss  Genevieve 
was  saying. 

"Yes,  Murray  is  stubbornly  honest,"  he  agreed; 
adding:  "He  is  too  good  for  this  world,  or  rather 
for  this  little  cross-section  of  Pandemonium  named 
Mirapolis." 

"Which,  inasmuch  as  we   are   making   Mirap- 

182 


The  Feast  of  Hurrahs 

olis  what  it  is,  is  more  than  can  be  said  for  most 
of  us,"  laughed  Miss  Cortwright.  Then,  with  a 
purposeful  changing  of  the  subject:  "Where  is 
Miss  Massingale?  As  the  original  'daughter  of 
the  Niquoia'  she  ought  to  have  a  place  on  the 
band-stand," 

"She  was  with  Tig  Smith  and  Lord  Falkland 
when  the  parade  formed,"  rejoined  the  engineer. 
*'I  saw  them  on  the  balcony  of  the  Metropole." 

"Since  you  are  the  chairman  of  the  reception 
committee,  I  think  you  ought  to  go  and  find  her," 
said  Miss  Genevieve  pointedly,  so  pointedly  that 
Brouillard  rose  laughing  and  said: 

"Thank  you  for  telling  me;  whom  shall  I  send 
to  take  my  place  here?" 

"Oh,  anybody — Lord  Falkland  will  do.  By 
the  way,  did  you  know  that  he  is  Lord  Falkland 
now?     His  elder  brother  died  a  few  weeks  ago." 

"No,  I  hadn't  heard  it.  I  should  think  he 
would  want  to  go  home." 

"He  does.  But  he,  too,  has  contracted  Mirapo- 
litis.  He  has  been  investing  any  number  of  pounds 
sterling.  If  you  find  him  send  him  to  me.  I 
want  to  see  how  the  real,  simon-pure  American 
brand  of  oratory  affects  a  British  title." 

Brouillard  went,  not  altogether  unwillingly. 
Loving  Amy   Massingale  with   a   passion  which, 

183 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

however  blind  it  might  be  on  the  side  of  the 
higher  moraHties,  was  still  keen-sighted  enough 
to  assure  him  that  every  plunge  he  made  in  the 
Mirapolitan  whirlpool  was  sweeping  him  farther 
away  from  her;  he  found  himself  drifting  irresis- 
tibly into  the  inner  circle  of  attraction  of  which 
Genevieve  Cortwright  was  the  centre. 

Whether  Miss  Cortwright's  influence  was  for 
good  or  for  evil,  in  his  own  case,  or  was  entirely 
disinterested,  he  could  never  quite  determine. 
There  were  times,  Hke  this  present  instant  of 
blatant  rejoicings,  when  she  was  brightly  cynical, 
flinging  a  mocking  jest  at  all  things  Mirapolitan. 
But  at  other  times  he  had  a  haunting  conviction 
that  she  was  at  heart  her  father's  open-eyed  ally 
and  abettor,  taking  up  as  she  might  the  burden 
of  filial  loyalty  thrown  down  by  her  brother  Van 
Bruce,  who,  in  his  short  summer  of  Mirapolitan 
citizenship,  had  been  illustrating  all  the  various 
methods  by  which  a  spoiled  son  of  fortune  may 
go  to  the  dogs. 

Brouillard  faced  the  impossible  brother  and 
the  almost  equally  impossible  father  when  he 
thought  of  Genevieve  Cortwright.  But  latterly 
the  barriers  on  that  side  had  been  crumbling  more 
and  more.  Once,  and  once  only,  had  he  men- 
tioned the  trusteeship  debt  to  Genevieve,  and  on 

184 


The  Feast  of  Hurrahs 

that  occasion  she  had  laughed  Hghtly  at  what 
she  had  called  his  strained  sense  of  honor. 

The  laugh  had  come  at  a  critical  moment.  It 
was  in  the  height  of  the  madness  following  the 
discovery  of  the  placers,  in  an  hour  when  Brouil- 
lard  would  have  given  his  right  hand  to  undo  the 
love-prompted  disloyalty  to  his  service,  that 
Cortwright,  whose  finger  was  on  everybody's 
pulse,  had  offered  to  buy  in  the  thousand  shares 
of  power  company's  stock  at  par.  Brouillard  had 
seen  freedom  in  a  stroke  of  the  millionaire's  pen; 
but  it  was  a  distinct  downward  step  that  by  this 
time  he  was  coming  to  look  upon  the  payment 
of  his  father's  honor  debt  as  a  hard  necessity. 
He  meant  to  pay  it,  but  there  was  room  for  the 
grim  determination  that  the  payment  should  for- 
ever sever  him  from  the  handicapped  past. 

He  had  transferred  the  stock,  minus  a  single 
share  to  cover  his  official  standing  on  the  power 
company's  board,  to  Cortwright  and  had  re- 
ceived the  millionaire's  check  in  payment.  It 
was  in  the  evening  of  the  same  eventful  day,  he 
remembered,  that  Genevieve  Cortwright  had 
laughed,  and  the  letter,  which  was  already  written 
to  the  treasurer  of  a  certain  Indianapolis  trust 
company,  was  not  mailed.  Instead  of  mailing 
it    he    had   opened    an   account   at  the   Niquoia 

185 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

National,  and  the  ninety-nine  thousand  nine 
hundred  dollars  had  since  grown  by  speculative 
accretions  to  the  rounded  first  eighth  of  a  miUion 
which  all  financiers  agree  in  calling  the  stepping- 
stone  to  fortune. 

He  had  regarded  this  money — was  still  regard- 
ing it — as  a  loan;  his  lever  with  which  to  pry  out 
something  which  he  could  really  call  his  own. 
But  more  and  more  possession  and  use  were  dull- 
ing the  keen  edge  of  accountability  and  there 
were  moments  of  insight  when  the  grim  irony  of 
taking  the  price  of  honor  to  pay  an  honor  debt 
forced  itself  upon  him.  At  such  moments  he 
plunged  more  recklessly,  in  one  of  them  taking 
stock  in  a  gold-dredge  company  which  was  to 
wash  nuggets  by  the  wholesale  out  of  the  Quad- 
jenai  bend,  in  another  buying  yet  other  options 
in  the  newest  suburb  of  Mirapolis. 

What  was  to  come  of  all  this  he  would  not 
suffer  himself  to  inquire;  but  two  results  were 
thrusting  themselves  into  the  foreground.  Every 
added  step  in  the  way  he  had  chosen  was  taking 
him  farther  from  the  ideals  of  an  ennobling  love 
and  nearer  to  a  possibility  which  precluded  all 
ideals.  Notwithstanding  Grislow's  characteriza- 
tion of  her  as  a  trophy  hunter,  Genevieve  Cort- 
wright  was,  after  all,  a  woman,  and  as  a  woman  she 

i86 


The  Feast  of  Hurrahs 

was  to  be  won.  With  the  naive  conceit  of  a  man 
who  has  broken  into  the  heart  of  one  woman, 
Brouillard  admitted  no  insurmountable  obstacles 
other  than  those  which  the  hard  condition  of  be- 
ing himself  madly  in  love  with  another  woman 
might  interpose;  and  there  were  times  when,  to 
the  least  worthy  part  of  him,  the  possibility  was 
alluring.  Miss  Cortwright's  distinctive  beauty, 
her  keen  and  ready  wit,  the  assurance  that  she 
would  never  press  the  ideals  beyond  the  purely 
conventional  limits;  in  the  course  of  time  these 
might  happily  smother  the  masterful  passion 
which  had  thus  far  been  only  a  blind  force  driv- 
ing him  to  do  evil  that  good  might  ensue. 

Some  such  duel  of  motives  was  fighting  itself 
to  an  indecisive  conclusion  in  the  young  engi- 
neer's thoughts  when  he  plunged  into  the  sidewalk 
throngs  in  search  of  the  Englishman,  and  it  was 
not  until  after  he  had  found  Falkland  and  had 
delivered  Miss  Genevieve's  summons  that  the 
duel  paused  and  immediate  and  more  disquieting 
impressions  began  to  record  themselves. 

With  the  waning  of  the  day  of  celebrations  the 
temper  of  the  street  throngs  was  changing.  It  is 
only  the  people  of  the  Latinized  cities  who  can 
take  the  carnival  spirit  lightly;  in  other  blood 
liberty    grows    to    license    and    the    thin    veneer 

187 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

of  civilized  restraints  quickly  disappears.  From 
early  dawn  the  saloons  and  dives  had  been  adding 
fuel  to  the  flames,  and  light-heartedness  and  good- 
natured  horse-play  were  giving  way  to  sardonic 
humor  and  brutality. 

In  the  short  faring  through  the  crowded  street 
from  the  plaza  to  the  Metropole  corner  Brouillard 
saw  and  heard  things  to  make  his  blood  boil. 
Women,  those  who  were  not  a  part  of  the  unre- 
strained mob,  were  disappearing  from  the  streets, 
and  it  was  well  for  them  if  they  could  find  shelter 
near  at  hand.  Twice  before  he  reached  Bongras's 
cafe  entrance  the  engineer  shouldered  his  way  to 
the  rescue  of  some  badgered  nucleus  of  excursion- 
ists, and  in  each  instance  there  were  frightened 
women  to  be  hurriedly  spirited  away  to  the  near- 
est place  of  seclusion  and  safety. 

It  was  in  front  of  Bongras's  that  Brouillard  came 
upon  the  Reverend  Hugh  Castner,  the  hot-hearted 
young  zealot  who  had  been  flung  into  Mirapolis 
on  the  crest  of  the  tidal  wave  of  mining  excitement. 
Though  Hosford — who  had  not  been  effaced,  as 
Mr.  Cortwright  had  promised  he  should  be — and 
the  men  of  his  cHque  called  the  young  missionary 
a  meddlesome  visionary,  he  stood  in  the  stature 
of  a  man,  and  lower  Chigringo  Avenue  loved  him 
and  swore  by  him;  and  sent  for  him  now  and  then 

i88 


The  Feast  of  Hurrahs 

when  some  poor  soul,  hastily  summoned,  was  to 
be  eased  off  into  eternity. 

When  Brouillard  caught  sight  of  him  Castner 
was  looking  out  over  the  seething  street  caldron 
from  his  commanding  height  of  six  feet  of  ath- 
letic man  stature,  his  strong  face  a  mask  of  bitter 
humiliation  and  concern. 

"Brouillard,  this  is  simply  hideous!"  he  ex- 
claimed. **If  this  devils'  carnival  goes  on  until 
nightfall  we  shall  have  a  revival  of  the  old  Ro- 
man Saturnalia  at  its  worst!"  Then,  with  a  swift 
blow  at  the  heart  of  the  matter:  "You're  the 
man  I've  been  wanting  to  see;  you  are  pretty 
close  in  with  the  Cortwright  junta — is  it  true  that 
free  whiskey  has  been  dealt  out  to  the  crowd  over 
the  bar  in  the  Niquoia  Building?" 

Brouillard  said  that  he  did  not  know,  which 
was  true,  and  that  he  could  not  believe  it  possi- 
ble, which  was  not  true.  "The  Cortwright  peo- 
ple are  as  anxious  to  have  the  celebration  pass  off 
peaceably  as  even  you  can  be,"  he  assured  the 
young  missionary,  trying  to  buttress  the  thing 
which  was  not  true.  "When  riot  comes  in  at  the 
door,  business  flies  out  at  the  window;  and,  after 
all,  this  feast  of  hurrahs  is  merely  another  bid 
for  business." 

But  Castner  was  shaking  his  head. 
189 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

of  civilized  restraints  quickly  disappears.  From 
early  dawn  the  saloons  and  dives  had  been  adding 
fuel  to  the  flames,  and  light-heartedness  and  good- 
natured  horse-play  were  giving  way  to  sardonic 
humor  and  brutality. 

In  the  short  faring  through  the  crowded  street 
from  the  plaza  to  the  Metropole  corner  Brouillard 
saw  and  heard  things  to  make  his  blood  boil. 
Women,  those  who  were  not  a  part  of  the  unre- 
strained mob,  were  disappearing  from  the  streets, 
and  it  was  well  for  them  if  they  could  find  shelter 
near  at  hand.  Twice  before  he  reached  Bongras's 
cafe  entrance  the  engineer  shouldered  his  way  to 
the  rescue  of  some  badgered  nucleus  of  excursion- 
ists, and  in  each  instance  there  were  frightened 
women  to  be  hurriedly  spirited  away  to  the  near- 
est place  of  seclusion  and  safety. 

It  was  in  front  of  Bongras's  that  Brouillard  came 
upon  the  Reverend  Hugh  Castner,  the  hot-hearted 
young  zealot  who  had  been  flung  into  MirapoHs 
on  the  crest  of  the  tidal  wave  of  mining  excitement. 
Though  Hosford — who  had  not  been  eff'aced,  as 
Mr.  Cortwright  had  promised  he  should  be — and 
the  men  of  his  clique  called  the  young  missionary 
a  meddlesome  visionary,  he  stood  in  the  stature 
of  a  man,  and  lower  Chigringo  Avenue  loved  him 
and  swore  by  him;  and  sent  for  him  now  and  then 

i88 


The  Feast  of  Hurrahs 

when  some  poor  soul,  hastily  summoned,  was  to 
be  eased  off  into  eternity. 

When  Brouillard  caught  sight  of  him  Castner 
was  looking  out  over  the  seething  street  caldron 
from  his  commanding  height  of  six  feet  of  ath- 
letic man  stature,  his  strong  face  a  mask  of  bitter 
humiliation  and  concern. 

"Brouillard,  this  is  simply  hideous!"  he  ex- 
claimed. "If  this  devils'  carnival  goes  on  until 
nightfall  we  shall  have  a  revival  of  the  old  Ro- 
man Saturnalia  at  its  worst!"  Then,  with  a  swift 
blow  at  the  heart  of  the  matter:  "You're  the 
man  I've  been  wanting  to  see;  you  are  pretty 
close  in  with  the  Cortwright  junta — is  it  true  that 
free  whiskey  has  been  dealt  out  to  the  crowd  over 
the  bar  in  the  Niquoia  Building?" 

Brouillard  said  that  he  did  not  know,  which 
was  true,  and  that  he  could  not  believe  it  possi- 
ble, which  was  not  true.  "The  Cortwright  peo- 
ple are  as  anxious  to  have  the  celebration  pass  off 
peaceably  as  even  you  can  be,"  he  assured  the 
young  missionary,  trying  to  buttress  the  thing 
which  was  not  true.  "When  riot  comes  in  at  the 
door,  business  flies  out  at  the  window;  and,  after 
all,  this  feast  of  hurrahs  is  merely  another  bid 
for  business." 

But  Castner  was  shaking  his  head. 
189 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

**I  can't  answer  for  Mr,  Cortwright  personally. 
He  and  Handley  and  Schermerhorn  and  a  few  of 
the  others  seem  to  stand  for  respectability  of  a 
sort.  But,  Mr.  Brouillard,  I  want  to  tell  you  this: 
somebody  in  authority  is  grafting  upon  the  vice 
of  this  community,  not  only  to-day  but  all  the 
time. 

"The  community  is  certainly  vicious  enough 
to  warrant  any  charge  you  can  make,"  admitted 
Brouillard.  Then  he  changed  the  topic  abruptly, 
**Have  you  seen  Miss  Massingale  since  noon?" 

"Yes;  I  saw  her  with  Smith,  the  cattleman,  at 
the  other  end  of  the  Avenue  about  an  hour 
ago. 

"Heavens!"  gritted  the  engineer.  "Didn't 
Smith  know  better  than  to  take  her  down  there 
at  such  a  time  as  this?" 

The  young  missionary  was  frowning  thought- 
fully. "I  think  it  was  the  other  way  about.  Her 
brother  has  been  drinking  again,  and  I  took  it 
for  granted  that  she  and  Smith  were  looking  for 
him." 

Brouillard  buttoned  his  coat  and  pulled  his 
soft  hat  over  his  eyes. 

"I'm  going  to  look  for  her,"  he  said.  "Will 
you  come  along?" 

Castner  nodded,  and  together  they  put  their 
190 


The  Feast  of  Hurrahs 

shoulders  to  the  crowd.  The  slow  progress  north- 
ward was  nearly  a  battle.  The  excursion  trains 
returning  to  Red  Butte  and  Brewster  were  sched- 
uled to  leave  early,  and  the  stream  of  blatant, 
uproarious  humanity  was  setting  strongly  toward 
the  temporary  railroad  station. 

Again  and  again  the  engineer  and  his  companion 
had  to  intervene  by  word  and  blow  to  protect  the 
helpless  in  the  half-drunken,  gibe-flinging  crush, 
and  in  these  sallies  Castner  bore  his  part  like  a 
man,  expostulating  first  and  hitting  out  after- 
ward in  a  fashion  that  left  no  doubt  in  the  mind 
of  his  antagonist  of  the  moment. 

So,  struggling,  they  came  finally  to  the  open 
square  of  the  plaza.  Here  the  speechmaking  was 
concluded  and  the  crowd  was  thinning  a  little. 
There  was  a  clamorous  demonstration  of  some 
sort  going  on  around  the  band-stand,  but  they  left 
it  behind  and  pushed  on  into  the  less  noisy  but 
more  dangerous  region  of  the  lower  Avenue. 

In  one  of  the  saloons,  as  they  passed,  a  sudden 
crackling  of  pistol-shots  began,  and  a  mob  of  ter- 
rorized Reclamation-Service  workmen  poured  into 
the  street,  sweeping  all  obstacles  before  it  in  a 
mad  rush  for  safety. 

*'It  was  little  less  than  a  crime  to  turn  your 
laborers  loose  on  the  town  on  such  an  occasion 

191 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

as  this,"  said  Castner,  dealing  out  his  words  as 
frankly  and  openly  as  he  did  his  blows. 

Brouillard  shrugged. 

"If  I  hadn't  given  them  the  day  they  would 
have  taken  it  without  leave.  You'll  have  to  pass 
the  responsibility  on  to  some  one  higher  up," 

The  militant  one  accepted  the  challenge 
promptly. 

"It  lies  ultimately  at  the  door  of  those  whose 
insatiate  greed  has  built  this  new  Gomorrah  in 
the  shadow  of  your  dam."  He  wheeled  suddenly 
and  flung  a  long  arm  toward  the  half-finished 
structure  filling  the  gap  between  the  western 
shoulders  of  Chigringo  and  Jack's  Mountain. 
"There  stands  the  proof  of  God's  wisdom  in 
hiding  the  future  from  mankind,  Mr.  Brouillard. 
Because  a  little  section  of  humanity  here  behind 
that  great  wall  knows  the  end  of  its  hopes,  and  the 
manner  and  time  of  that  end,  it  becomes  demon- 
ridden,  irreclaimable!" 

At  another  time  the  engineer  might  have  felt 
the  force  of  the  tersely  eloquent  summing  up  of 
the  accusation  against  the  Mirapolitan  attitude. 
But  now  he  was  looking  anxiously  for  Amy  Mas- 
singale  or  her  escort,  or  both  of  them. 

"Surely  Smith  wouldn't  let  her  stay  down  here 
a  minute  longer  than  it  took  to  get  her  away,"  he 

192 


The  Feast  of  Hurrahs 

said  impatiently  as  a  pair  of  drunken  Cornishmen 
reeled  out  of  Haley's  Place  and  usurped  the 
sidewalk.  "Where  was  it  you  saw  them,  Cast- 
nerr 

"They  were  in  front  of  'Pegleg  John's',  in  the 
next  block.  Miss  Massingale  was  waiting  for 
Smith,  who  was  just  coming  out  of  Pegleg's  den 
shaking  his  head.  I  put  two  and  two  together 
and  guessed  they  were  looking  for  Stephen." 

"If  they  went  there  Miss  Amy  had  her  reasons. 
Let's  try  it,"  said  Brouillard,  and  he  was  half-way 
across  the  street  when  Castner  overtook  him. 

There  was  a  dance-hall  next  door  to  Pegleg 
John's  barrel-house  and  gambling  rooms,  and, 
though  the  daylight  was  still  strong  enough  to 
make  the  electrics  garishly  unnecessary,  the  orgy 
was  in  full  swing,  the  raucous  clanging  of  a  piano 
and  the  shuffle  and  stamp  of  many  feet  drowning 
the  monotonous  cries  of  the  sidewalk  "barker," 
who  was  inviting  all  and  sundry  to  enter  and  join 
the  dancers. 

Castner  would  have  stopped  to  question  the 
"barker" — was,  in  fact,  trying  to  make  himself 
heard — when  the  sharp  crash  of  a  pistol-shot 
dominated  the  clamor  of  the  piano  and  the  stamp- 
ing feet.  Brouillard  made  a  quick  dash  for  the 
open  door  of  the  neighboring  barrel-house,   and 

193 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

Castner  was  so  good  a  second  that  they  burst  in 
as  one  man. 

The  dingy  interior  of  Pegleg  John's,  which  was 
merely  a  barrel-Hned  vestibule  leading  to  the 
gambling  rooms  beyond,  staged  a  tragedy.  A 
handsome  young  giant,  out  of  whose  face  sudden 
agony  had  driven  the  brooding  passion  of  intoxi- 
cation, lay,  loose-flung,  on  the  sawdust-covered 
floor,  with  Amy  Massingale  kneeling  in  stricken, 
tearless  misery  beside  him.  Almost  within  arm's- 
reach  Van  Bruce  Cortwright,  the  slayer,  was 
wrestling  stubbornly  with  Tig  Smith  and  the 
fat-armed  barkeeper,  who  were  trying  to  disarm 
him,  his  heavy  face  a  mask  of  irresponsible  rage 
and  his  lips  bubbling  imprecations. 

"Turn  me  loose,"  he  gritted.  "I'll  fix  him  so 
he  won't  give  the  governor's  snap  away!  He'll 
pipe  the  story  of  the  Coronida  Grant  off"  to  the 
papers? — not  if  I  kill  him  till  he's  too  dead  to 
bury,  I  guess." 

Castner  ignored  the  wrestling  three  and  dropped 
quickly  on  his  knees  beside  Stephen  Massingale, 
bracing  the  misery-stricken  girl  with  the  needed 
word  of  hope  and  directing  her  in  low  tones  how 
to  help  him  search  for  the  wound. 

But  Brouillard  hurled  himself  with  an  oath 
upon  young  Cortwright,  and  it  was  he,  and  neither 

194 


The  Feast  of  Hurrahs 

the  cattleman  nor  the  fat-armed  barkeeper,  who 
wrenched  the  weapon  out  of  Cortwright's  grasp 
and  with  it  menaced  the  babbling  murderer  into 
silence. 


195 


XII 

Quicksands 

A  SHORT  week  after  the  Reclamation  Service 
headquarters  had  been  moved  from  the  log- 
built  offices  on  the  government  reservation  to  the 
commodious  and  airy  suite  on  the  sixth  floor  of 
the  Niquoia  Building  Brouillard  received  the 
summons  which  he  had  been  expecting  ever  since 
the  night  of  rioting  and  lawlessness  which  had 
marked  the  close  of  the  railroad  celebration. 

"Mr.  Cortwright  would  like  to  see  you  in  his 
rooms  at  the  Metropole,"  was  the  message  the 
office  boy  brought,  and  Brouillard  closed  his  desk 
with  a  snap  and  followed  the  boy  to  Bongras's. 

The  shrewd-eyed  tyrant  of  Mirapolis  was  in 
his  shirt-sleeves,  busily  dictating  to  two  sten- 
ographers alternately,  when  the  engineer  entered 
the  third  room  of  the  series;  but  the  work  was 
suspended  and  the  stenographers  were  sent  away 
as  soon  as  Brouillard  was  announced. 

"Well,"  was  the  milHonaire's  greeting,  "you 
waited  to  be  sent  for,  didn't  you?" 

196 


Quicksands 

"Why  not?"  said  Broulllard  shortly.  "I  have 
my  work  to  do  and  you  have  yours." 

"And  the  two  jobs  are  at  opposite  ends  of  the 
string,  you'd  say.  Never  mind;  we  can't  afford 
to  throw  each  other  down,  and  just  now  you  can 
tell  me  a  few  things  that  I  want  to  know.  How 
is  young  Massingale  getting  along. f"" 

"As  well  as  could  be  expected.  Carruthers — 
the  doctor — says  he  is  out  of  danger." 

"H'm.  It  has  been  handed  in  to  me  two  or 
three  times  lately  that  the  old  man  is  out  gunning 
for  Van  Bruce  or  for  me.     Any  truth  in  that.^" 

"I  think  not.  Massingale  is  a  Kentuckian,  and 
I  fancy  he  is  quite  capable  of  potting  either  one 
or  both  of  you  for  the  attack  on  his  son.  But  so 
far  he  has  done  nothing — has  hardly  left  Steve's 
bedside." 

Mr.  J.  Wesley  Cortwright  flung  himself  back 
in  his  luxurious  swing  chair  and  clasped  his 
pudgy  hands  over  the  top  of  his  head  where  the 
reddish-gra}^  hair  was  thinning  reluctantly. 

"I've  been  putting  it  off  to  see  which  way  the 
cat  was  going  to  jump,"  he  admitted.  "If  young 
Massingale  is  out  of  danger,  it  is  time  to  get  ac- 
tion. What  was  the  quarrel  about,  between  him 
and  Van  Bruce?" 

"Why  do  you  ask  me?"  queried  Brouillard. 
197 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"Because  you  are  pretty  thick  with  the  Massin- 
gales,  and  you  probably  know,"  was  the  blunt 
accounting  for  the  question. 

"It  occurs  to  me  that  your  son  would  be  a 
better  source  of  information,"  said  Brouillard, 
still  evading. 

"Van  Bruce  has  told  me  all  he  remembers — 
which  isn't  much,  owing  to  his  own  beastly  con- 
dition at  the  time.  He  says  young  Massingale  was 
threatening  something — something  in  connection 
with  the  Coronida  Grant — and  that  he  got  the 
insane  idea  into  his  head  that  the  only  way  to 
stop  the  threat  was  by  killing  Massingale." 

The  sandy-gray  eyes  of  the  millionaire  pro- 
moter were  shifting  while  he  spoke,  but  Brouil- 
lard fixed  and  held  them  before  he  said:  "Why 
should  Massingale  threaten  your  son,  Mr.  Cort- 
wright?" 

"I  don't  know,"  denied  the  promoter,  and  he 
said  it  without  flinching  a  hair's-breadth. 

"Then  I  can  tell  you,"  was  the  equally  steady 
rejoinder.  "Some  time  ago  you  lent  David  Mas- 
singale, through  the  bank,  a  pretty  large  sum  of 
money  for  development  expenses  on  the  'Little 
Susan,'  taking  a  mortgage  on  everything  in  sight 
to  cover  the  loan." 

"I  did." 

198 


Quicksands 

"Massingale's  obligation  was  in  short-time, 
bankable  paper,  which  he  expected  to  take  up 
when  the  railroad  should  come  in  and  give  him 
a  market  for  the  ore  which  he  has  already  taken 
out  of  the  mine." 

"Yes." 

"But  when  the  railroad  was  an  assured  fact  he 
learned  that  the  Red  Butte  smelters  wouldn't 
take  his  ore,  giving  some  technical  reason  which 
he  knew  to  be  a  mere  excuse." 

Mr.  Cortwright  nodded.  "So  far  you  might 
be  reading  it  out  of  a  book." 

"In  consequence  of  these  successive  happenings, 
David  Massingale  finds  himself  in  a  fair  way  to 
become  a  broken  man  by  the  simplest  of  com- 
mercial processes.  The  bank  holds  his  notes, 
which  will  presently  have  to  be  paid.  If  he  can't 
pay,  the  bank  comes  back  on  you  as  his  indorser, 
and  you  fall  back  on  your  mortgage  and  take  the 
mine.     Isn't  that  about  the  size  of  it?" 

"It  is  exactly  the  size  of  it." 

Brouillard  laughed  quietly.  "And  yet  you 
said  a  moment  ago  that  you  didn't  know  why 
young  Massingale  should  threaten  your  son." 

"And  I  don't  know  yet,"  blustered  the  mag- 
nate. "Is  it  my  fault  that  Massingale  can't  pay 
his  debts?" 

199 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

The  engineer  had  stopped  laughing  when  he 
said  definitely  and  decidedly:  "It  is," 

It  was  the  promoter's  turn  to  laugh. 

"What  sort  of  a  bug  have  you  got  in  your 
cosmos  this  morning,  Brouillard?  Why,  man, 
you're  crazy!" 

Brouillard  rose  and  relighted  his  cigar. 

"If  that  is  your  last  word,  Mr.  Cortwright,  I 
may  as  well  go  back  to  my  office.  You  don't 
need  me." 

"Oh,  hold  on;  don't  go  off  in  a  hufF.  You're 
too  thin-skinned  for  any  common  kind  of  use.  I 
was  only  trying  you  to  see  how  far  you'd  carry  it. 
Let  it  stand.  Assume,  for  the  sake  of  argument, 
that  I  do  want  the  'Little  Susan'  and  that  I've 
got  a  good  friend  or  two  in  the  Red  Butte  smelt- 
ers who  will  help  me  get  it.  Now,  then,  does  that 
stand  the  band-wagon  upon  its  wheels  again?" 

Brouillard's  black  eyes  were  snapping,  but  his 
voice  was  quite  steady  when  he  said:  "Thank 
you;  now  we  shall  go  on  better.  You  want  the 
'Little  Susan,'  and  Massingale  naturally  thinks 
you're  taking  an  unfair  advantage  of  him  to  get 
it.  Quite  as  naturally  he  is  going  to  make  re- 
prisals if  he  can.  That  brings  us  down  to  the 
mention  of  the  Coronida  Grant  and  Stephen  Mas- 
singale's  threat — which  your  son  can't  remember. 

200 


Quicksands 

"Right-o,"  said  Mr.  Cortwright,  still  with  pre- 
determined geniality.     "What  was  the  threat?" 

"I  don't  know,  but  the  guessing  list  is  open 
to  everybody.  There  was  once  a  grant  of  many 
square  miles  of  mountain  and  desert  somewhere 
in  this  region  made  to  one  Don  Estacio  de  Mon- 
t2"riba  Coronida.  Like  those  of  most  of  the 
great  Spanish  land  grants,  the  boundaries  of  this 
one  were  loosely  described  and " 

Mr.  Cortwright  held  up  a  fat  hand. 

"I  know  what  you're  going  to  say.  But  we 
went  into  all  that  at  Washington  before  we  ever 
invested  a  single  dollar  in  this  valley.  As  you 
may  or  may  not  know,  the  Reclamation  Service 
bureau  tried  to  choke  us  off.  But  when  it  came 
down  to  brass  tacks,  they  lacked  a  witness.  W^e 
may  be  in  the  bed  of  your  proposed  lake,  but 
we're  safely  on  Coronida  land." 

"So  you  say,"  said  Brouillard  quietly,  "and  on 
the  strength  of  that  you  have  been  guaranteeing 
titles." 

"Oh,  no,"  protested  the  millionaire.  "We  have 
merely  referred  purchasers  to  the  record.  There 
is  a  clause  in  every  deed." 

"But  you  have  car^--^  it  to  be  believed  that 
your  title  was  good,  that  the  government's  claim 
to  the  land  will  not  hold." 

20 1 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

trip  at  your  expense.  Wouldn't  that  be  rather 
awkward?" 

The  mayor  of  Mirapolis  brought  his  hands  to- 
gether, fist  in  palm,  and  for  a  flitting  instant  the 
young  engineer  saw  in  the  face  of  the  father  the 
same  expression  that  he  had  seen  in  the  face  of 
the  son  when  Van  Bruce  Cortwright  was  strug- 
gling for  a  second  chance  to  kill  a  man. 

"Damn  you!"  said  the  magnate  savagely;  "you 
always  know  too  much!  You're  bargaining  with 
me! 

"Well,  you  have  bargained  w4th  me,  first,  last, 
and  all  the  time,"  was  the  cool  retort.  "On  each 
occasion  I  have  had  my  price,  and  you  have  paid 
it.  Now  you  are  going  to  pay  it  again.  Shall  I 
go  over  to  the  Spot-Light  office  and  tell  Harlan 
what  I  know?" 

"You  can't  bluff  me  that  way,  Brouillard,  and 
you  ought  to  sense  it  by  this  time.  Do  you  sup- 
pose I  don't  know  how  you  are  fixed? — that 
you've  got  money — money  that  you  used  to  say 
you  owed  somebody  else — tied  up  in  Mirapolis 
investments?" 

Brouillard  rose  and  buttoned  his  coat. 

"There  is  one  weak  link  in  your  chain,  Mr. 
Cortwright,"  he  said  evenly;  "you  don't  know 
men.     Put  on  your  coat  and  come  over  to  Har- 

204 


Quicksands 

lan's  office  with  me.  It  will  take  just  about  two 
minutes  to  satisfy  you  that  I'm  not  bluffing." 

For  a  moment  it  appeared  that  the  offer  was  to 
be  accepted.  But  when  he  had  one  arm  in  a 
coat  sleeve,  Brouillard's  antagonist  in  the  game 
of  hardihood  changed  his  tactics. 

"Forget  it,"  he  growled  morosely.  *'What  do 
you  want  this  time?" 

"I  want  you  to  send  a  wire  to  Red  Butte  telling 
the  smelter  people  that  you  will  be  glad  to  have 
them  handle  the  'Little  Susan'  ore." 

"And  if  I  do?" 

"If  you  do,  two  things  otherwise  due  to  happen 
adversely  will  go  over  to  your  side  of  the  market. 
I'll  agree  to  keep  out  of  the  way  of  the  sham 
Washington  delegation,  and  I  think  I  can  promise 
that  Harlan  won't  make  a  scare-head  of  the  facts 
concerning  the  Coronida  land  titles." 

Mr.  Cortwright  thrust  the  other  arm  into  the 
remaining  coat  sleeve  and  scowled.  But  the  re- 
bound to  the  norm  of  brusque  good-nature  came 
almost  immediately. 

"You  are  improving  wonderfully,  Brouillard, 
and  that's  no  joke.  I  have  a  large  respect  for  a 
man  who  can  outbid  me  in  my  own  corner.  You 
ought  to  be  in  business — and  you  will  be,  some 
time.     I'll    send    the    wire,    but    I   warn  you  in 

205 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

advance  that  I  can't  make  the  smelter  people 
take  Massingale's  ore  if  they  don't  want  to.  All 
I  can  do  is  to  give  the  old  man  a  free  field." 

"That  is  all  he  will  ask — all  I'll  ask,  except  one 
small  personal  favor:  don't  rub  your  masquerad- 
ing Washington  delegation  into  me  too  hard.  A 
fine  quality  of  non-interference  is  about  all  you 
are  buying  from  me,  and " 

The  interruption  came  in  the  form  of  a  tap  at 
the  door  opening  into  the  hotel  corridor,  and 
Brouillard,  at  a  sign  from  the  master  of  the  pre- 
cincts, turned  the  knob.  It  was  Miss  Genevieve 
who  entered,  bringing  the  sweet  breeziness  and  au- 
dacity of  youth  and  beauty  and  health  with  her. 

"How  fortunate!"  she  exclaimed,  with  the 
charming  smile  that  accorded  so  perfectly  with 
her  fresh,  early-morning  radiance.  And  while  the 
hand  of  greeting  still  lay  in  Brouillard's:  "I  have 
just  been  up  to  your  office,  and  they  told  me  they 
hadn't  the  smallest  idea  where  you  could  be  found. 
Are  you  going  to  be  very  busy  this  afternoon .'' " 

Brouillard  gave  the  required  denial,  and  she 
explained  her  quest  of  him.  There  was  to  be  an 
auto  party  to  the  newly  opened  casino  at  the 
upper  power  dam.  Would  he  go,  if  he  might  have 
the  post  of  honor  behind  the  pilot-wheel  of  the 
new  sixty-horse,  seven-passenger  flyer?     Please! 

206 


Quicksands 

Mr,  Cortwright  leaned  heavily  upon  his  desk 
while  the  asking  and  answering  went  on,  and  the 
shrewd,  gray  eyes  were  busy.  When  his  daughter 
went  out  and  Brouillard  was  about  to  follow  her, 
the  genial  web  spinner  stopped  him. 

"Tell  me  one  thing,  Brouillard:  what  is  your 
stake  in  the  Massingale  game?  Are  you  a  silent 
partner  in  the  'Little  Susan'?" 

"No." 

"Then  why  are  you  so  anxious  to  make  old 
David  a  rich  man  at  my  expense?  Are  you 
going  to  marry  the  girl?" 

The  engineer  did  not  resent  the  question  as  he 
would  have  resented  it  a  few  weeks  earUer.  In- 
stead he  smiled  and  said:  "A  httle  while  ago, 
Mr.  Cortwright,  I  told  you  that  you  didn't  know 
men;   now  I'll  add  that  you  don't  know  women." 

"I  know  Gene,"  said  the  web  spinner  crypti- 
cally, and  this  was  the  word  that  Brouillard  took 
with  him  when  he  went  back  to  his  offices  in  the 
Niquoia  Building. 


207 


XIII 
Flood  Tide 

PUBLIC  opinion,  skilfully  formed  upon  models 
fashioned  in  Mayor  Cortwright's  municipal 
laboratory,  dealt  handsomely  with  the  little  group 
of  widely  heralded  visitors — the  "Congressional 
committee" — penetrating  to  the  Wonder  City, 
not  by  special  train,  to  be  sure,  but  still  with 
creditable  circumstance  in  President  Ford's  pri- 
vate car  "Nadia,"  attached  to  the  regular  express 
from  Brewster. 

For  example,  when  it  was  whispered  about, 
some  days  before  the  auspicious  arrival,  that  the 
visiting  lawmakers  wished  for  no  public  dem.on- 
stration  of  welcome,  it  was  resolved,  both  in  the 
city  council  and  in  the  Commercial  Club,  that 
the  wish  should  be  rigidly  respected. 

Later,  when  there  filtered  out  from  the  same 
secret  source  of  information  a  hint  to  the  effect 
that  the  committee  of  investigation,  for  the  better 
forming  of  an  unbiassed  opinion,  desired  to  be  re- 
garded merely  as  a  body  of  representative  citizens 

208 


Flood  Tide 

and  the  guests  of  Mayor  Cortwright,  and  not  as 
national  legislators,  this  desire,  too,  was  respected; 
and  even  Harlan,  itching  to  his  finger-tips  for 
something  definite  to  print  in  the  Spot-Light,  de- 
nied himself  the  bare,  journalistic,  bread-and-but- 
ter necessity  of  interviewing  the  lawmakers. 

Safeguarded,  then,  by  the  loyal  incuriosity  of  an 
entire  city,  the  visitors  went  about  freely,  were 
feted,  dined,  banqueted,  and  entertained  as  dis- 
tinguished citizens  of  the  Greater  America;  were 
personally  conducted  over  the  government  work, 
and  were  autoed  to  the  Quadjenai"  placers,  to  the 
upper  valley,  and  to  the  canal  diggers'  camps  in 
the  Buckskin,  all  without  prejudice  to  the  official 
incognito  which  it  was  understood  they  wished 
to  preserve. 

Hence,  after  the  farewell  banquet  at  the  Com- 
mercial Club,  at  which  even  the  toasts  had  ignored 
the  official  mission  of  Mayor  Cortwright's  guests, 
when  the  "Nadia,"  reprovisioned  and  tastefully 
draped  with  the  national  colors,  was  coupled  to 
the  outgoing  train  in  the  Chigringo  yards,  tin- 
gling curiosity  still  restrained  itself,  said  nothing 
and  did  nothing  until  the  train  had  stormed  out 
on  the  beginning  of  its  steep  climb  to  War  Arrow 
Pass.  Then  the  barriers  went  down.  In  less 
than  half  an  hour  after  the  departure  of  the  vis- 

209 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

itors,  the  Spot-Light  office  was  besieged  by  eager 
tip  hunters,  and  the  Metropole  cafe  and  lobby 
were  thronged  and  buzzing  Hke  the  compartments 
of  an  anxious  beehive. 

Harlan  stood  the  pressure  at  the  newspaper 
office  as  long  as  he  could.  Then  he  slipped  out 
the  back  way  and  prevailed  upon  Bongras  to 
smuggle  him  up  to  Mr.  Cortwright's  rooms.  Here 
there  was  another  anxious  deputation  in  waiting, 
but  Harlan's  card  was  honored  at  once. 

"News!"  gasped  the  editor,  when  he  had  broken 
into  the  privacies.  "They're  about  to  mob  us 
over  at  the  office,  and  the  town  will  go  crazy  if  it 
can't  be  given  at  least  a  hint  of  what  the  com- 
mittee's report  is  likely  to  be.  I  tell  you,  Mr. 
Cortwright,  it's  panic,  or  the  biggest  boom  we 
ever  dreamed  of!" 

"Sit  down,  Harlan,"  said  the  great  man  calmly, 
pushing  the  open  box  of  cigars  across  the  desk  to 
the  editor;  "sit  down  and  get  a  fresh  grip  on  your 
nerves.  There  will  be  no  panic;  of  that  you  can 
be  absolutely  certain.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  mustn't  kick  the  fat  into  the  fire  when  every- 
thing is  going  our  way.  Naturally,  I  am  under 
bonds  to  keep  my  mouth  shut  until  after  the 
committee  has  made  its  report.  I  can't  even  give 
you  the  hint  you  want.     But  I  will  say  this — and 

2IO 


Flood  Tide 

you  can  put  It  in  an  interview  if  you  like:  I'm 
not  refusing  anything  in  the  shape  of  Mirapolis 
realty  at  ruHng  prices.  That's  all  I  can  say  at 
present." 

Harlan  was  hustled  out,  as  he  had  been  hustled 
in,  half  dazed  and  wholly  in  despair.  There  was 
a  Hght  in  Brouillard's  office  on  the  sixth  floor 
of  the  Niquoia  Building,  and  thither  he  went, 
hoping  against  hope,  for  latterly  the  chief  of  the 
Reclamation  Service  had  been  more  than  usually 
reticent. 

''What  do  you  know,  Brouillard?"  was  the 
form  his  demand  took  when,  finding  that  the 
elevator  had  stopped,  he  had  dragged  himself  up 
the  five  flights  of  stairs.  "I'm  up  against  it 
good  and  hard  if  I  can't  print  something  in  to- 
morrow's paper." 

"Go  to  Cortwright,"  suggested  the  engineer. 
He  s  your  man. 

"Just  come  from  him,  and  I  couldn't  get  a  thing 
there  except  his  admission  that  he  is  buying  in- 
stead of  selling." 

"Well,  what  more  do  you  want?  Haven't  you 
any  imagination?" 

"Plenty  of  it,  and,  by  Gad,  I'm  going  to  use  it 
unless  you  put  it  to  sleep !  Tell  me  a  few  correla- 
tive things,  Brouillard,  and  I'll  make  a  noise  like 

211 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

going  away.  Is  it  true  that  you've  had  orders 
from  Washington  within  the  past  few  days  to 
cut  your  force  on  the  dam  one  half?" 

The  engineer  was  playing  with  the  paper-knife, 
absently  marking  little  circles  and  ellipses  on  his 
desk  blotter,  and  the  ash  on  his  cigar  grew  a  full 
quarter  of  an  inch  before  he  replied: 

"Not  for  publication,  Harlan,  I'm  sorry  to  say." 

"But  you  have  the  order?" 

"Yes." 

"Do  you  know  the  reason  why  it  was  given?" 

"I  do." 

"Is  it  a  good  reason?" 

"It  is  a  very  excellent  reason,  indeed." 

"Does  the  order  cover  more  than  the  work  on 
the  dam?" 

"Yes;  it  extends  to  the  canal  diggers  in  the 
Buckskin." 

"Good.  Then  I'll  ask  only  one  more  question, 
and  if  you  answer  it  at  all  I  know  you'll  tell  me 
the  truth:  are  you,  individually,  buying  or  selling 
on  the  Real  Estate  Exchange?  Take  your  time, 
Brouillard,  but,  for  God's  sake,  don't  turn  me 
down." 

Brouillard  did  take  time,  plenty  of  it.  Over 
and  over  the  point  of  the  paper-knife  traced  the 
creased  circles  and  ellipses,  and  the  ash  on  the 

212 


Flood  Tide 

slowly  burning  cigar  grew  longer.  Harlan  was  a 
student  of  men,  but  his  present  excitement  was 
against  him.  Otherwise  he  could  not  have  stared 
so  long  and  so  intently  at  Brouillard's  face  with- 
out reading  therein  the  record  of  the  soul  struggle 
his  final  question  had  evoked.  And  if  he  had 
read,  he  would  have  interpreted  differently  the 
quick  flinging  down  of  the  paper-cutter,  and  the 
sudden  hardening  of  the  jaw  muscles  when  Brou- 
illard  spoke. 

"I'm  buying,  Harlan;  when  I  sell  it  is  only  to 
buy  again." 

The  newspaper  man  rose  and  held  out  his  hand. 

"You're  a  man  and  a  brother,  Brouillard,  and 
I'm  your  friend  for  life.  With  only  a  fraction  of 
your  chance  at  inside  information,  I've  stayed  on 
the  up-hill  side,  straight  through,  myself.  And 
I'll  tell  you  why.  I've  banked  on  you.  I've 
said  to  myself  that  it  was  safe  for  me  to  wade 
around  in  the  edges  if  you  could  plunge  out  in 
the  sure-enough  swimming-hole.  I'm  going  to 
stay  until  you  give  me  the  high  sign  to  crawl 
out  on  the  bank.     Is  that  asking  too  much?" 

"No.  If  the  time  ever  comes  when  I  have 
anything  to  say,  I'll  say  it  to  you.  But  don't 
lose  sight  of  the  'if,'  and  don't  lean  too  hard  on 
me.     I'm  a  mighty  uncertain  quantity  these  days, 

213 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

Harlan,  and  that's  the  truest  thing  I've  told  you 
since  you  butted  in.     Good-night." 

Mirapolis  awoke  to  a  full  sense  of  its  oppor- 
tunities on  the  morning  following  the  departure 
of  its  distinguished  guests.  Though  the  Spot- 
Light  was  unable  to  say  an3^thing  conclusively 
definite,  Harlan  had  made  the  most  of  what  he 
had;  and,  trickling  in  from  a  dozen  independent 
sources,  as  it  seemed,  came  jubilant  confirmation 
of  the  Spot-Light' s  optimistic  editorials. 

In  such  a  crisis  all  men  are  liars.  Now  that  the 
visiting  delegation  was  gone,  there  were  scores  of 
witnesses  willing  to  testify  that  the  Honorable 
Tom,  Dick,  or  Harry  had  dropped  the  life-giving 
word;  and  though  each  fictionist  knew  that  his 
own  story  was  a  fabrication,  it  was  only  human  to 
believe  that  of  the  man  with  whom  he  exchanged 
the  whispered  confidence. 

To  the  lies  and  the  exaggerations  was  presently 
added  a  most  convincing  truth.  By  ten  o'clock 
it  was  the  talk  of  the  lobbies,  the  club,  and  the 
exchanges  that  the  Reclamation  Service  was  al- 
ready abandoning  the  work  on  the  great  dam. 
One  half  of  the  workmen  were  to  be  discharged 
at  once,  and  doubtless  the  other  half  would  fol- 
low as  soon  as  the  orders  could  come  from  Wash- 
ington. 

214 


Flood  Tide 

Appealed  to  by  a  mob  of  anxious  inquirers, 
Brouillard  did  not  deny  the  fact  of  the  discharges, 
and  thereupon  the  city  went  mad  in  a  furor  of 
speculative  excitement  in  comparison  with  which 
the  orgy  of  the  gold  discoverers  paled  into  insig- 
nificance. "Curb"  exchanges  sprang  into  being 
in  the  Metropole  lobby,  in  the  court  of  the  Ni- 
quoia  Building,  and  at  a  dozen  street  corners  on 
the  Avenue.  Word  went  to  the  placers,  and  by 
noon  the  miners  had  left  their  sluice-boxes  and 
were  pouring  into  town  to  buy  options  at  prices 
that  would  have  staggered  the  wildest  plunger 
otherwhere,  or  at  any  other  time. 

Brouillard  closed  his  desk  at  one  o'clock  and 
went  to  fight  his  way  through  the  street  pande- 
monium to  Bongras's.  At  a  table  in  the  rear  room 
he  found  David  Massingale,  his  long,  white  beard 
tucked  into  the  closely  buttoned  miner's  coat  to 
be  out  of  the  way  of  the  flying  knife  and  fork, 
while  he  gave  a  lifelike  imitation  of  a  man  be- 
grudging every  second  of  time  wasted  in  stopping 
the  hunger  gap. 

Brouillard  took  the  opposite  chair  and  was 
grimly  amused  at  the  length  of  time  that  elapsed 
before  Massingale  realized  his  presence. 

"Pity  a  man  has  to  stop  to  eat  on  a  day  like 
this,  isn't  it,  Mr.  Massingale?"  he  laughed;    and 

215 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

then:  "I  wouldn't  hurry.  There's  another  day 
coming;  or  if  there  isn't,  we'll  all  be  In  the  same 
boat.     How  is  Steve?" 

Massingale  nodded.  "The  boy's  comin'  along 
all  right  now;  he  allows  to  be  out  in  another 
week  'r  two."  Then  the  inevitable  question: 
"They're  sayin'  on  the  street  that  you're  let- 
tin'  out  half  o'  your  men — that  so?" 

Brouillard  laughed  again. 

"I've  heard  it  so  often  that  I've  come  to  be- 
lieve it  myself,"  he  admitted,  adding:  "Yes,  it's 
true."  After  which  he  asked  a  question  of  his 
own:  "Have  you  been  doing  something  in  real 
estate  this  morning,  Mr.  Massingale?" 

"All  I  could,"  mumbled  the  old  man  between 
mouthfuls.  "But  I  cayn't  do  much.  If  it  ain't 
one  thing,  it's  another.  'Bout  as  soon  as  I  got 
that  tangle  with  the  Red  Butte  smelter  straight- 
ened out,  the  railroad  hit  me." 

"How  was  that?"  queried  Brouillard,  with 
quickening  interest  coming  alive  at  a  bound. 

"Same  old  song,  no  cars;  try  and  get  'em  to- 
morruh,  and  to-morruh  it'll  be  next  day,  and 
next  day  it'll  be  the  day  after.  Looks  like  they 
don't  want  to  haul  any  freight  out  o   here." 

"I  see,"  said  Brouillard,  and  truly  he  saw  much 
more  than  David  Massingale  did.     Then:    "No 

216 


Flood  Tide 

shipments  means  no  money  for  you,  and  more 
delay;  and  delay  happens  to  be  the  one  thing 
you  can't  stand.  When  do  those  notes  of  yours 
fall  due?" 

"Huh?"  said  Massingale.  He  was  a  close- 
mouthed  man,  by  breeding  and  by  habit,  and  he 
was  quite  sure  he  had  never  mentioned  the  "Little 
Susan"  entanglement  to  the  young  engineer. 

Brouillard  became  more  explicit.  "The  notes 
covering  your  indebtedness  to  the  bank  for  the 
money  you've  been  putting  into  development 
work  and  improvements — I  asked  when  they 
would  become  due." 

The  old  man's  heavy  white  eyebrows  bent 
themselves  in  a  perplexed  frown. 

"Amy  hadn't  ort  to  talk  so  much,"  he  ob- 
jected.    "Business  is  business." 

Brouillard's  smile  was  a  tacit  denial  of  the  im- 
plication. 

"You  forget  that  there  were  several  other 
parties  to  the  transaction  and  that  any  man's 
business  is  every  man's  in  this  crazy  town,"  he 
suggested.  "But  you  haven't  answered  my  ques- 
tion about  the  due  date.  I  didn't  ask  it  out  of 
idle  curiosity,  I  assure  you." 

Massingale  was  troubled,  and  his  fine  old  face 
showed  it  plainly. 

217 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"I  ain't  much  of  a  man  to  holler  when  I've  set 
the  woods  afire  myself,"  he  answered  slowly. 
"But  I  don't  know  why  I  shouldn't  yip  a  little 
to  you  if  I  feel  like  it.  To-day  is  the  last  day  on 
them  notes,  and  I'd  about  made  up  my  mind 
that  I  was  goin'  up  the  spout  on  a  sure  thing  for 
the  fourth  time  since  I  hit  the  mount'ins,  when 
this  here  new  ^;ifcitement  broke  out." 

''Go  on,"  said  Brouillard. 

"I  saw  a  chance — about  a  one-to-a-hundred 
shot.  I'd  been  to  see  Hardwick  at  the  bank,  and 
he  gave  me  the  ultimaytum  good  and  cold;  if  I 
couldn't  lift  the  paper,  the  bank'd  have  to  go 
back  on  my  indorser,  John  Wes.  I  had  a  little 
over  five  thousand  left  out  o'  the  borray,  and  I 
took  it  and  broke  for  the  Real  Estate  Exchange. 
Been  there  for  three  solid  hours,  turnin'  my  little 
stake  over  like  a  flapjack  on  a  hot  griddle;  but  it 
ain't  any  use,  I  cayn't  turn  it  fast  enough,  'r  often 
enough,  betwixt  now  and  three  o'clock." 

One  of  Bongras's  rear-room  luxuries  was  a  port- 
able telephone  for  every  group  of  tables.  Brouil- 
lard made  a  sign  to  the  waiter,  and  the  desk  set 
was  brought  to  him.  If  David  Massingale  recog- 
nized the  number  asked  for,  he  paid  no  attention; 
and,  since  a  man  may  spend  his  life  digging  holes 
in  the  ground  and  still  retain  the  instincts  of  a 

218 


Flood  Tide 

gentleman — if  he  happens  to  have  been  born  with 
them — he  was  equally  oblivious  to  the  disjointed 
half  of  the  telephone  conversation  he  might  have 
listened  to. 

"Hello!  Is  that  Boyer — Niquoia  National? 
.  .  .  This  is  Brouillard.  Can  you  give  me  my 
present  figure?  .  .  .  Not  more  than  that?  .  .  . 
Oh,  yes;  you  say  the  Hillman  check  is  in;  I  had 
overlooked  it.     All  right,  thank  you." 

When  the  waiter  had  removed  the  desk  set,  the 
engineer  leaned  toward  his  table  companion: 

"Mr.  Massingale,  I'm  going  to  ask  you  to  tell 
me  frankly  what  kind  of  a  deal  it  was  you  made 
with  Cortwright  and  the  bank  people." 

"It  was  the  biggest  tom-fool  razzle  that  any 
livin'  live  man  out  of  a  lunatic  'sylum  ever  went 
into,"  confessed  the  prisoner  of  fate.  "I  was  to 
stock  the  'Susan'  for  half  a  million — oh,  she's 
worth  it,  every  dollar  of  it;  you  might  say  the 
ore's  in  sight  for  it  right  now" — this  in  deference 
to  Brouillard's  brow-Hfting  of  surprise.  "They 
was  to  put  in  a  hundred  thousand  cash,  and  I 
was  to  put  in  the  mine  and  the  ore  on  the  dump, 
just  as  she  stood." 

The  engineer  nodded  and  Massingale  went  on. 

"I  was  to  have  two  thirds  of  the  stock  and  they 
was  to  have  one  third.     The  hundred  thousand 

219 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

for  development  we'd  get  at  the  bank,  on  my 
notes,  because  I  was  president  and  the  biggest 
stockholder,  with  John  Wes.  as  indorser.  Then, 
to  protect  the  bank  accordin'  to  law,  they  said, 
we'd  put  the  whole  bunch  o'  stock — mine  and 
their'n — into  escrow  in  the  hands  of  Judge  Wil- 
liams. When  the  notes  was  paid,  the  judge'd 
hand  the  stock  back  to  us." 

"Just  a  moment,"  interrupted  Brouillard. 
"Did  you  sign  those  notes  personally,  or  as  presi- 
dent of  the  new  company?" 

"That's  where  they  laid  for  me,"  said  the  old 
man  shamefacedly.  "We  made  the  money  turn 
before  we  was  a  company — while  we  was  waitin' 
for  the  charter." 

"Of  course,"  commented  Brouillard.  "And 
they  rushed  you  into  it  on  the  plea  of  saving  time. 
But  you  say  the  stock  was  to  be  released  when 
the  notes  were  paid — what  was  to  happen  if  they 
were  not  paid?" 

"Right  there  is  where  John  Wes.'s  ten-dollar-a- 
bottle  sody-pop  stuff  we  was  soppin'  up  must  'a' 
foolished  me  plumb  silly;  I  don't  just  rightly 
recollect  what  the  judge  was  to  do  with  the 
stock  if  I  fell  down.  I  know  it  was  talked  all 
'round  Robin  Hood's  barn,  up  one  side  and  down 
the  other,  and  they  made  it  look  like  I  couldn't 

220 


Flood  Tide 

slip  up  if  I  tried  to.  And  they  made  the  borray 
at  the  bank  look  fair  enough,  too." 

"Well,  why  wasn't  it  fair?"  Brouillard  wanted 
to  know. 

"Why,  sufFerin'  Moses!  don't  you  see?  It 
hadn't  ort  to  've  been  needed.  They  was  to  put 
in  a  hundred  thousand,  and  they  wasn't  doin'  it. 
It  figgered  out  this-a-way  in  the  talk:  they  said, 
what's  the  use  o'  takin'  the  money  out  o'  one 
pocket  and  puttin'  it  into  the  other?  Let  the 
bank  carry  the  development  loan  and  let  the 
mine  pay  it.  Then  we  could  even  up  when  it 
come  to  the  dividends." 

"So  it  amounts  to  this:  you  have  given  them  a 
clean  third  of  the  'Susan'  for  the  mere  privilege 
of  borrowing  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  on 
your  own  paper.  And  if  you  don't  pay,  you 
lose  the  remaining  two  thirds  as  well." 

"That's  about  the  way  it  stacks  up  to  a  sober 
man.  Looks  like  I  needed  a  janitor  to  look  after 
my  upper  story,  don't  it?  And  I  reckon  mebby 
I  do." 

"One  thing  more,"  pressed  the  relentless  que- 
rist. "Did  you  really  handle  the  hundred- 
thousand-dollar  development  fund  yourself,  Mr. 
Massingale?" 

"Well,  no;   not  exactly.     Ten  thousand  dollars 

221 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

of  what  they  called  a  'contingent  fund'  was  put 
in  my  name;  but  the  treasurer  handled  most  of 
it — nachurly,  we  bein*  a  stock  company." 

"Who  is  your  treasurer?" 

"Feller  with  just  one  share  o'  stock — Parker 
Jackson." 

"Humph!  Cortwright's  private  secretary. 
And  he  has  spent  ninety  thousand  dollars  on  the 
'Little  Susan'  in  sixty  days?  Not  much!  What 
has  your  pay-roll  been?" 

"'Bout  five  hundred  a  week." 

"That  is  to  say  between  three  and  four  thousand 
dollars  for  the  two  months — call  it  five  thousand. 
Now,  let's  see — "  Brouillard  took  out  his  pencil 
and  began  to  make  figures  on  the  back  of  the 
menu  card.  He  knew  the  equipment  of  the  Lit- 
tle Susan,"  and  his  specialty  was  the  making  of 
estimates.  Hence  he  was  able  to  say,  after  a  min- 
ute or  two  of  figuring: 

"Thirty  thousand  dollars  will  amply  cover  your 
new  equipment:  power  drills,  electric  transfers, 
and  the  cheap  telpherage  plant.  Have  you  ever 
seen  any  vouchers  for  the  money  spent?" 

"No.     Had  I  ort  to?" 

"Well,  rather — as  president  of  the  company." 

Massingale  tucked  the  long  white  beard  still 
farther  into  the  buttoned  coat.     "I  been  tellin' 

222 


Flood  Tide 

you  I  need  a  mule-driver  to  knock  a  little  sense 
into  me,"  he  offered. 

"It's  a  bad  business  any  way  you  attack  it," 
said  Brouillard  after  a  reflective  pause.  "What 
you  have  really  got  for  yourself  out  of  the  deal 
is  the  ten-thousand-dollar  deposit  to  your  per- 
sonal account,  and  nothing  more;  and  they'll  prob- 
ably try  to  make  you  a  debtor  for  that.  Taking 
that  amount  and  a  fair  estimate  of  the  company's 
expenditures  to  date — say  thirty-five  thousand 
in  round  numbers,  which  is  fairly  chargeable  to 
the  company's  assets  as  a  whole^they  still  owe 
you  about  fifty-five  thousand  of  the  original  hun- 
dred thousand  they  were  to  put  in.  If  there  were 
time — but  you  say  this  is  the  last  day?" 

"The  last  half  o'  the  last  day,"  Massingale 
amended. 

"I  was  going  to  say,  if  there  were  time,  this 
thing  wouldn't  stand  the  light  of  day  for  a  min- 
ute, Mr.  Massingale.  They  wouldn't  go  within 
a  hundred  miles  of  a  court  of  law  with  it.  Can't 
you  get  an  extension  on  the  notes? — but  of  course 
you  can't;  that  is  just  the  one  thing  Cortwright 
doesn't  want  you  to  have — more  time." 

"No;  you  bet  he  don't." 

"That  being  the  case,  there  is  no  help  for  it; 
you'll  have  to  take  your  medicine  and  pay  the 

223 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

notes.  Do  that,  take  an  iron-clad  receipt  from 
the  bank— I'll  write  it  out  for  you — and  get  the 
stock  released.  After  that,  we'll  give  them  a 
whirl  for  the  thirty-three  and  a  third  per  cent  they 
have  practically  stolen  from  you." 

The  old  man's  face,  remindful  now  of  his  daugh- 
ter's, was  a  picture  of  dismayed  incertitude. 

"I  reckon  you're  forgettin'  that  I  hain't  got 
money  enough  to  lift  one  edge  o'  them  notes,"  he 
said  gently. 

Brouillard  had  found  a  piece  of  blank  paper  in 
his  pocket  and  was  rapidly  writing  the  "iron- 
clad" receipt. 

"No,  I  hadn't  forgotten.  I  have  something 
over  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  lying  idle  in  the 
bank.     You'll  take  it  and  pay  the  notes." 

It  was  a  bolt  out  of  a  clear  sky  for  the  old  man 
tottering  on  the  brink  of  his  fourth  pit  of  disaster, 
and  he  evinced  his  emotion — and  the  tense  strain 
of  keyed-up  nerves — by  dropping  his  lifted  cofFee- 
cup  with  a  crash  into  his  plate.  The  little  acci- 
dent was  helpful  in  its  way, — it  made  a  diversion, 
— and  by  the  time  the  wreck  was  repaired  speech 
was  possible. 

"Are  you — are  you  plumb  sure  you  can  spare 
it?"  asked  the  debtor  huskily.  And  then:  "I 
cayn't  seem  to  sort  o'  surround  it — all  in  a  bunch, 

224 


Flood  Tide 

that  way.  I  knowed  J.  Wesley  had  me  down; 
knowed  it  in  less  'n  a  week  after  he  sprung  his 
trap.  He  wanted  the  'Little  Sue,'  wanted  it 
worse  'n  a  little  yaller  dog  ever  wanted  his  supper. 
Do  you  know  why?  I  can  tell  you.  After  you 
get  your  dam  done,  and  every  dollar  of  the  make- 
believe  money  this  cussed  town's  built  on  has 
gone  to  the  bottom  o'  the  Dead  Sea,  the  'Susan' 
will  still  be  joggin'  along,  forty  dollars  to  the  ton. 
It's  the  only  piece  o'  real  money  in  this  whole 
blamed  free-for-all,  and  J.  Wes.  knows  it." 

Brouillard  looked  at  his  watch.  "When  you're 
through  we'll  go  around  to  the  bank  and  fix  it 
up.  There's  no  hurry.  I've  got  to  ride  down  to 
the  Buckskin  camps,  but  I  don't  care  to  start 
much  before  two." 

Massingale  nodded,  but  his  appetite  was  gone, 
and  speech  with  it,  the  one  grateful  outburst 
having  apparently  drained  the  well.  But  after 
they  had  made  their  way  through  the  excited  side- 
walk exchanges  to  the  bank,  and  Brouillard  had 
written  his  check,  the  old  man  suddenly  found 
his  voice  again. 

"You  say  you're  goin'  down  to  the  Buckskin 
right  away?  How  'm  I  goin'  to  secure  you  for 
this?" 

"We  can  talk  about  that  later  on,  after  I  come 
225 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

back.  The  thing  to  do  now  is  to  get  those  notes 
cancelled  and  that  stock  released  before  bank- 
closing  time." 

Still  David  Massingale,  with  the  miraculously 
sent  bit  of  rescue  paper  in  his  hand,  hesitated. 

"There's  one  other  thing — and  I've  got  to  spit 
it  out  before  it's  everlastedly  too  late.  See  here, 
Victor  Br'uillard — Amy  likes  you — thinks  a  heap 
of  you;  a  plumb  blind  man  could  see  that.  But 
say,  that  little  girl  o'  mine  has  just  natchurly  got 
to  have  a  free  hand  when  it  comes  to  pairin'  up, 
and  she  won't  never  have  if  she  finds  out  about 
this.     You  ain't  allowin'  to  use  it  on  her,  Victor?" 

Brouillard  laughed. 

"I'll  make  a  hedging  bet  and  break  even  with 
you,  Mr.  Massingale,"  he  said.  "That  check  is 
drawn  to  my  order,  and  I  have  indorsed  it.  Let 
me  have  it  again  and  I'll  get  the  cash  for  you. 
In  that  way  only  the  two  of  us  need  know  any- 
thing about  the  transaction;  and  if  I  promise  to 
keep  the  secret  from  Miss  Amy,  you  must  promise 
to  keep  it  from  Mr.  J.  Wesley  Cortwright.  Will 
you  saw  it  off  with  me  that  way.? — until  you've 
made  the  turn  on  the  ore  sales?" 

David  Massingale  shook  hands  on  it  with  more 
gratitude,  colored  this  time  with  a  hearty  impre- 
cation.    "Dad  burn  you,  Victor  Br'uillard,  you're 

226 


Flood  Tide 

a  man — ever'  single  mill-run  of  you!"  he  burst 
out.     But  Brouillard  shook  his  head  gravely. 

"No,  Mr.  Massingale,  I'm  the  little  yellow 
dog  you  mentioned  a  while  back,"  he  asserted, 
and  then  he  went  to  get  the  money. 

The  check  cashed  and  the  transfer  of  the 
money  made,  Brouillard  did  not  wait  to  see  Mas- 
singale astonish  the  Niquoia  National  cashier. 
Nor  did  he  remark  the  curious  change  that  came 
into  the  old  man's  face  at  the  pocketing  of  the 
thick  sheaf  of  bank-notes.  But  he  added  a  word 
of  comment  and  another  of  advice  before  leav- 
ing the  bank. 

"The  day  fits  us  like  a  glove,"  was  the  com- 
ment. "With  all  the  money  that  is  changing 
hands  in  the  street,  Hardwick  won't  wonder  at 
your  sudden  raise  or  at  my  check."  Then  he 
put  in  the  word  of  warning:  "I  suppose  you'll  be 
dabbling  a  little  in  Mirapolis  options  after  you 
get  this  note  business  out  of  the  way.^  It's  all 
right — I'd  probably  do  it  myself  if  I  didn't  have 
to  leave  town.  But  just  one  word  in  your  ear, 
Mr.  Massingale:  buy  and  sell — dont  hold.  That's 
all.     Good-by,  and  good  luck  to  you." 

Left  alone  in  the  small  retiring  room  of  the 
bank  where  the  business  had  been  transacted, 
David  Massingale  took  the  sheaf  of  bank-notes 

227 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

from  his  pocket  with  trembHng  hands,  fondling  it 
as  a  miser  might.  The  bills  were  in  large  de- 
nominations, and  they  were  new  and  stiff.  He 
thumbed  the  end  of  the  thick  packet  as  one  runs 
the  leaves  of  a  book,  and  the  flying  succession  of 
big  figures  seemed  to  dazzle  him.  There  was  an 
outer  door  to  the  customers'  room  giving  upon  the 
side  street;  it  was  the  one  through  which  Brouil- 
lard  had  passed.  Twice  the  old  man  made  as  if 
he  would  turn  toward  the  door  of  egress,  and  the 
light  in  his  gray-blue  eyes  was  the  rekindling 
flame  of  a  passion  long  denied.  But  in  the  end 
he  thrust  the  tempting  sheaf  back  into  the  inner 
pocket  and  went  resolutely  to  the  cashier's  coun- 
ter window. 

Expecting  to  have  to  do  with  Hardwick,  the 
brusque  and  business-like  cashier,  Massingale  was 
jarred  a  little  aside  from  his  own  predetermined 
attitude  by  finding  Schermerhorn,  the  president, 
sitting  at  the  cashier's  desk.  But  from  the  bank- 
er's first  word  the  change  seemed  to  be  altogether 
for  the  better. 

"How  are  you,  Mr.  Massingale?  Glad  to  see 
you.  How  is  the  boy  getting  along?  First  rate, 
I  hope?" 

Massingale  was  looking  from  side  to  side,  like 
a  gray  old  hawk  disappointed  in  its  swoop.     It 

228 


Flood  Tide 

would  have  been  some  satisfaction  to  buffet  the 
exacting  Hardwick  with  the  fistful  of  money. 
But  with  Schermerhorn  the  note  Hfting  would 
figure  as  a  mere  bit  of  routine. 

"I've  come  to  take  up  them  notes  o'  mine  with 
John  Wes.'s  name  on  'em,"  Massingale  began, 
pulling  out  the  thick  sheaf  of  redemption  money. 

"Oh,  yes;  let  me  see;  are  they  due  to-day.?" 
said  the  president,  running  over  the  note  port- 
folio. 

Massingale  nodded. 

"H'm,  yes,  here  they  are.  Brought  the  cash, 
did  you?  The  'Little  Susan'  has  begun  to  pan 
out,  has  it?  I  didn't  know  you  had  commenced 
shipping  ore  yet." 

"We  haven't."  David  Massingale  made  the 
admission  and  regretted  it  in  one  and  the  same 
breath. 

"You've  borrowed  to  meet  these  notes?"  que- 
ried the  president,  looking  up  quickly.  "That 
won't  do,  Mr.  Massingale;  that  won't  do  at  all. 
We  can't  afford  to  lose  an  old  customer  that  way. 
What's  the  matter  with  our  money?  Doesn't  it 
look  good  to  you  any  more?" 

Massingale  stammered  out  something  about 
Cashier  Hardwick's  peremptory  demand  of  a  few 
hours  earlier,  but  he  was  not  permitted  to  finish. 

229 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"Of  course,  that  is  all  right  from  Hardwick's 
point  of  view.  He  was  merely  looking  out  for 
the  maturing  paper.  How  much  more  time  will 
you  need  to  enable  you  to  get  returns  from  your 
shipments?  Sixty  days?  All  right,  you  needn't 
make  out  new  notes;  I'll  indorse  the  extension 
on  the  back  of  these,  and  I'll  undertake  to  get 
Cortwright's  approval  myself.  No;  not  a  word, 
Mr.  Massingale.  As  long  as  you're  borrowing, 
you  must  be  loyal  and  borrow  of  us.  Good  after- 
noon.    Come  again  when  we  can  help  you  out." 

David  Massingale  turned  away,  dazed  and  con- 
fused beyond  the  power  of  speech.  When  the 
mists  of  astoundment  cleared  he  found  himself 
in  the  street  with  the  thick  wad  of  bank-notes 
still  in  his  pocket.  Suddenly,  out  of  the  limbo 
into  which  two  years  of  laborious  discipline  and 
self-denial  had  pushed  it  stalked  the  demon  of 
the  ruling  passion,  mighty,  overpowering,  uncon- 
querable. The  familiar  street  sights  danced  be- 
fore Massingale's  eyes,  and  there  was  a  drumming 
in  his  ears  like  the  fall  of  many  waters.  But  above 
the  clamor  rose  the  insistent  voice  of  the  tempter, 
and  the  voice  was  at  once  a  command  and  an 
entreaty,  a  gnawing  hunger  and  a  parching  thirst. 

"By  Gash!  I'd  Hke  to  try  that  old  system  o' 
mine  jest  one  more  time!"    he  muttered.     "All 

230 


Flood  Tide 

it  takes  is  money  enough  to  foller  it  up  and  stay. 
And  I've  got  the  money.  Besides,  didn't  Br'ui!- 
lard  say  I  was  to  get  an  extension  if  I  could?" 

He  grabbed  at  his  coat  to  be  sure  that  the 
packet  was  still  there,  took  two  steps  toward  the 
bank,  stopped,  turned  as  if  in  the  grasp  of  an  in- 
visible but  irresistible  captor,  and  moved  away, 
like  a  man  walking  in  his  sleep,  toward  the  lower 
Avenue. 

It  was  the  doorway  of  Haley's  Place,  the  Monte 
Carlo  of  the  Niquoia,  that  finally  halted  him. 
Here  the  struggle  was  so  fierce  that  the  bartender, 
who  knew  him,  named  it  sickness  and  led  the 
stricken  one  to  a  card-table  in  the  public  bar- 
room and  fetched  him  a  drink.  A  single  swal- 
low of  whiskey  turned  the  scale.  Massingale  rose, 
tossed  a  coin  to  the  bar,  and  passed  quickly  to  the 
rear,  where  a  pair  of  baize  doors  opened  silently 
and  engulfed  him. 


231 


XIV 

The  Abyss 

IT  was  at  early  candle-lighting  in  the  evening 
of  the  day  of  renewed  and  unbridled  specula- 
tion in  Mirapolis  "front  feet"  that  Brouillard, 
riding  the  piebald  range  pony  on  which  he  had 
been  making  an  inspection  round  of  the  nearer 
Buckskin  ditchers'  camps,  topped  the  hill  in  the 
new,  high-pitched  road  over  the  Chigringo  shoul- 
der and  looked  down  upon  the  valley  electrics. 

The  immediate  return  to  Mirapolis  was  no 
part  of  the  plan  he  had  struck  out  when  he  had 
closed  his  office  in  the  Niquoia  Building  at  one 
o'clock  and  had  gone  over  to  Bongras's  to  fall 
into  the  chance  encounter  with  David  Massingale. 
He  had  intended  making  a  complete  round  of  all 
the  ditch  camps,  a  ride  which  would  have  taken 
at  least  three  days,  and  after  parting  from  Massin- 
gale at  the  bank  he  had  left  town  at  once,  taking 
the  new  road  which  began  on  the  bench  of  the 
railroad  yard.  But  almost  immediately  a  singu- 
lar thing  had  happened.  Before  he  had  gone  a 
mile  a  strange  reluctance  had  begun  to  beset  him. 

232 


The  Abyss 

At  first  it  was  merely  a  haunting  feeling  of 
loss,  as  if  he  had  left  something  behind,  forget- 
ting when  he  should  have  remembered;  a  thing  of 
sufficient  importance  to  make  him  turn  and  ride 
back  if  he  could  only  recall  what  it  was.  Farther 
along  the  feeling  became  a  vague  premonition  of 
impending  disaster,  growing  with  every  added 
mile  of  the  Buckskin  gallopings  until,  at  Over- 
ton's Camp,  a  few  miles  short  of  the  Triangle- 
Circle  Ranch  headquarters,  he  had  yielded  and 
had  set  out  for  the  return. 

If  the  curious  premonition  had  been  a  drag  on 
the  outward  journey  it  became  a  spur  to  quicken 
the  eastward  faring.  Even  the  piebald  pony 
seemed  to  share  the  urgency,  needing  only  a 
loose  rein  and  an  encouraging  word.  Across  the 
yellow  sands  of  the  desert,  through  the  lower  ford 
of  the  Niquoia,  and  up  the  outlet  gorge  the  willing 
little  horse  tossed  the  miles  to  the  rear,  and  at 
the  hill-topping  moment,  when  the  electric  lights 
spread  themselves  in  the  valley  foreground  like 
stars  set  to  illuminate  the  chess-board  squares  of 
the  Wonder  City,  a  record  gallop  had  been  made 
from  Overton's. 

Brouillard  let  the  pony  set  its  own  pace  on  the 
down-hill  lap  to  the  finish,  and  it  was  fast  enough 
to   have  jolted   fresh   road   weariness   into   a  less 

233 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

seasoned  rider  than  the  young  engineer.  Most 
curiously,  the  premonition  with  its  nagging  ur- 
gency seemed  to  vanish  completely  as  soon  as  the 
city's  streets  were  under  hoof.  Brouillard  left 
the  horse  at  the  reservation  stables,  freshened 
himself  at  his  rooms  in  the  Niquoia  Building,  and 
went  to  the  Metropole  to  eat  his  dinner,  all  with- 
out any  recurrence  of  the  singular  symptoms. 
Further,  when  he  found  himself  at  a  table  with 
Murray  Grislow  as  his  vis-d-visy  and  had  invented 
a  plausible  excuse  for  his  sudden  return,  he  was 
able  to  enjoy  his  dinner  with  a  healthy  way- 
farer's appetite  and  to  talk  over  the  events  of  the 
exciting  day  with  the  hydrographer  with  few  or 
none  of  the  abstracted  mental  digressions. 

Afterward,  however,  the  symptoms  returned, 
manifesting  themselves  this  time  in  the  form  of  a 
vague  and  undefined  restlessness.  The  buzzing 
throngs  in  the  Metropole  cafe  and  lobby  annoyed 
him,  and  even  Grislow's  quiet  sarcasm  as  appHed 
to  the  day's  bubble-blowing  failed  to  clear  the 
air.  At  the  club  there  was  the  same  atmosphere 
of  unrest;  an  exacerbating  overcharge  of  the  sup- 
pressed activities  impatiently  waiting  for  another 
day  of  excitement  and  opportunity.  Corner  lots 
and  the  astounding  prices  they  had  commanded 
filled  the  air  in  the  lounge,  the  billiard  room,  and 

234 


The  Abyss 

the  buflPet,  and  after  a  few  minutes  Brouillard 
turned  his  back  on  the  hubbub  and  sought  the 
quiet  of  the  darkened  building  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  street. 

He  was  alone  in  his  office  on  the  sixth  floor  and 
was  trying,  half  absently,  to  submerge  himself  in 
a  sea  of  desk-work  when  the  disturbing  over- 
thought  suddenly  climaxed  in  an  occurrence  bor- 
dering on  the  supernatural.  As  distinctly  as  if 
she  were  present  and  at  his  elbow,  he  heard,  or 
seemed  to  hear.  Amy  Massingale  say:  "Victor, 
you  said  you  would  come  if  I  needed  you:  I  need 
you  now."  Without  a  moment's  hesitation  he 
got  up  and  made  ready  to  go  out.  Skeptical  to 
the  derisive  degree  of  other  men's  superstitions, 
it  did  not  occur  to  him  to  doubt  the  reality  of  the 
mysterious  summons,  or  to  question  in  any  way 
his  own  broad  admission  of  the  supernatural  in 
the  prompt  obedience. 

The  Massingale  town  house  was  one  of  a  row 
of  stuccoed  villas  fronting  on  the  main  residence 
street,  which  beyond  the  city  limits  became  the 
highroad  to  the  Quadjenai"  bend  and  the  upper 
valley.  Brouillard  took  a  cab  at  the  Metropole, 
dismissed  it  at  the  villa  gate,  and  walked  briskly 
up  the  path  to  the  house,  which  was  dark  save  for 
one  lighted  room  on  the  second  floor — the  room 

235 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

in  which  Stephen  Massingale  was  recovering  from 
the  effects  of  Van  Bruce  Cortwright's  pistol-shot. 

Amy  Massingale  was  on  the  porch — waiting  for 
him,  as  he  fully  believed  until  her  greeting  suffi- 
ciently proved  her  surprise  at  seeing  him. 

"You,  Victor?"  she  said,  coming  quickly  to 
meet  him.  "Murray  Grislow  said  you  had  gone 
down  to  the  Buckskin  camps  and  wouldn't  be 
back  for  two  or  three  days!" 

"Grizzy  told  the  truth — as  it  stood  a  few  hours 
ago,"  he  admitted.  "But  I  changed  my  mind 
and  came  back.     How  is  Steve  this  evening?" 

"He  is  quite  comfortable,  more  comfortable 
than  he  has  been  at  all  since  the  wound  began  to 
heal.  I  have  been  reading  him  to  sleep,  and  when 
the  night  nurse  came  I  ran  down  to  get  a  breath 
of  fresh  air  in  the  open." 

"No,  you  didn't  come  down  for  that  reason," 
Brouillard  amended  gravely.  "You  came  to 
meet  me." 

"Did  I?"  she  asked.  "What  makes  you  think 
that?" 

"I  don't  think;  I  know.  You  called  me,  and 
I  heard  you  and  came  at  once." 

"How  absurd!"  she  protested.  "I  knew,  or 
thought  I  knew,  that  you  were  miles  away,  over 
in  the  Buckskin;  and  how  could  I  call  you?" 

236 


The  Abyss 

Brouillard  pulled  out  his  watch  and  scanned 
its  face  by  the  light  of  the  roadway  electric. 

"It  is  exactly  twenty  minutes  since  I  left  my 
office.  What  were  you  doing  twenty  minutes  ago  ? " 

"As  if  I  could  tell!  I  don't  believe  I  have 
looked  at  a  clock  or  a  watch  all  evening.  After 
Stevie  had  his  supper  I  read  to  him — one  of  the 
creepy  Kipling  stories  that  he  is  so  fond  of. 
You  would  say  that  'Bimi'  would  be  just  about 
the  last  thing  in  the  world  to  put  anybody  to 
sleep,  wouldn't  you?  But  Stevie  dropped  off, 
and  I  think  I  must  have  lost  myself  for  a  minute 
or  two,  because  the  next  thing  I  knew  the  nurse 
was  in  the  room." 

"I  know  what  happened,"  said  Brouillard, 
speaking  as  soberly  as  if  he  were  stating  a  math- 
ematical certainty.  "You  left  that  room  up- 
stairs and  came  to  me.  I  didn't  see  you,  but  I 
heard  you  as  plainly  as  I  can  hear  you  now.  You 
spoke  to  me  and  called  me  by  name." 

"What  did  I  say?  Can  you  remember  the 
words?" 

"Indeed  I  can.  The  room  was  perfectly  still, 
and  I  was  working  at  my  desk.  Suddenly,  and 
without  any  warning,  I  heard  your  voice  saying: 
'Victor,  you  said  you  would  come  if  I  needed 
you:    I  need  you  nov/.'" 

237 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

She  shook  her  head,  laughing  lightly. 

"You  have  been  overwrought  about  something, 
or  maybe  you  are  just  plain  tired.  I  didn't  say 
or  even  think  anything  like  that;  or  if  I  did,  it 
must  have  been  the  other  I,  or  one  of  the  others, 
that  Herr  Freiborg  writes  about — and  I  don't 
believe  in.  This  I  that  you  are  talking  to  doesn't 
remember  anything  about  it." 

"You  are  standing  me  off,"  he  declared.  "You 
are  in  trouble  of  some  sort,  and  you  are  trying  to 
hide  it  from  me.*' 

"No,  not  exactly  trouble;  only  a  little  worry." 

"All  right,  call  it  worry  if  you  like  and  share 
it  with  me.     What  is  it?" 

"I  think  you  know  without  being  told — or  you 
will  know  when  I  say  that  to-day  was  the  day 
when  the  big  debt  to  the  bank  became  due.  I 
am  afraid  we  have  finally  lost  the  'Little  Susan.' 
That  is  one  of  the  worries  and  the  other  I've  been 
trying  to  call  silly.  I  don't  know  what  has  be- 
come of  father — as  if  he  weren't  old  enough  to  go 
and  come  without  telling  me  every  move  he 
makes!" 

"Your  father  isn't  at  home?"  gasped  Brouil- 
lard. 

"No;  he  hasn't  been  here  since  nine  o'clock 
this   morning.     Murray   Grislow   saw   him   going 

238 


The  Abyss 

into  the  Metropole  about  one  o'clock,  but  nobody 
that  I  have  been  able  to  reach  by  'phone  seems  to 
have  seen  him  after  that." 

"I  can  bring  the  record  down  to  two  o'clock," 
was  the  quick  reply.  "He  ate  with  me  at  Bon- 
gras's,  and  afterward  I  walked  with  him  as  far  as 
the  bank.  And  I  can  cure  part  of  the  first  worry 
— all  of  it,  in  fact;  he  had  the  money  to  take  up 
the  Cortwright  notes,  and  when  I  left  him  he  was 
on  his  way  to  Hardwick's  window  to  do  it." 

''He  had  the  money?     Where  did  he  get  it?" 

Brouillard  put  his  back  against  a  porch  post, 
a  change  of  position  which  kept  the  light  of  the 
street  electric  from  shining  squarely  upon  his  face. 

"It  has  been  another  of  the  get-rich-quick  days 
in  Mirapolis,"  he  said  evasively.  "Somebody 
told  me  that  the  corner  opposite  Poodles's  was 
bought  and  sold  three  times  within  a  single  hour 
and  that  each  time  the  price  was  doubled." 

"And  you  are  trying  to  tell  me  that  father 
made  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  just  in  those 
few  hours  by  buying  and  selling  Mirapolis  lots? 
You  don't  know  him,  Victor.  He  is  totally  lack- 
ing the  trading  gift.  He  has  often  said  that  he 
couldn't  stand  on  a  street  corner  and  sell  twenty- 
dollar  gold  pieces  at  nineteen  dollars  apiece — 
nobody  would  buy  of  him." 

239 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"Nevertheless,  I  am  telling  you  that  he  had 
the  money  to  take  up  those  notes,"  Brouillard  in- 
sisted.    "I  saw  it  in  his  hands." 

She  left  him  abruptly  and  began  to  pace  back 
and  forth  on  the  porch,  with  her  hands  behind 
her,  an  imitative  trait  unconsciously  copying  her 
father  in  his  moments  of  stress.  When  she 
stopped  she  stood  fairly  in  the  beam  of  the 
street  light.  The  violet  eyes  were  misty,  and  in 
the  low  voice  there  was  a  note  of  deeper  trouble. 

"You  say  you  saw  the  money  in  father's  hands; 
tell  me,  Victor,  did  you  see  him  pay  it  into  the 
bank?" 

"Why,  no;  not  the  final  detail.  But,  as  I  say, 
when  I  left  him  he  was  on  his  way  to  Hardwick's 
window." 

Again  she  turned  away,  but  this  time  it  was  to 
dart  into  the  house.  A  minute  later  she  had  re- 
joined him,  and  the  minute  had  sufficed  for  the 
donning  of  a  coat  and  the  pinning  on  of  the 
quaint  cowboy  riding-hat. 

"I  must  go  and  find  him,'*  she  said  with  quiet 
resolution.  "Will  you  go  with  me,  Victor? 
Perhaps  that  is  why  I — the  subconscious  I — 
called  you  a  little  while  ago.  Let's  not  wait  for 
the  Quadjenai*  car.  I'd  rather  walk,  and  we'll 
save  time." 

240 


The  Abyss 

They  set  out  together,  walking  rapidly  town- 
ward,  and  there  was  no  word  to  go  with  the  brisk 
footing.  Brouillard  respected  his  companion's 
silence.  That  the  thing  unspeakable,  or  at  least 
unspoken,  was  something  more  than  a  woman's 
undefined  fears  was  obvious;  but  until  she  should 
see  fit  to  tell  him  what  it  was,  he  would  not  ques- 
tion her. 

From  the  moment  of  outsetting  the  young 
woman's  purpose  seemed  clearly  defined.  By  the 
shortest  way  she  indicated  the  course  to  the 
Avenue,  and  at  the  Metropole  corner  she  turned 
unhesitatingly  to  the  northward — toward  the  re- 
gion of  degradation. 

As  was  to  be  expected  after  the  day  of  frantic 
speculation  and  quick  money  changing,  the  lower 
Avenue  was  ablaze  with  light,  the  sidewalks  were 
passes  of  peril,  and  the  saloons  and  dives  were 
reaping  a  rich  harvest.  Luckily,  Brouillard  was 
well  known,  and  his  position  as  chief  of  the  great 
army  of  government  workmen  purchased  some- 
thing like  immunity  for  himself  and  his  compan- 
ion. But  more  than  once  he  w^as  on  the  point  of 
begging  the  3'oung  woman  to  turn  back  for  her 
own  sake. 

The  quest  ended  unerringly  at  the  door  of 
Haley's    Place,    and    when    David    Massingale's 

241 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

daughter  made  as  if  she  would  go  in,  Brouillard 
protested  quickly. 

"No,  Amy,"  he  said  firmly.  "You  mustn't  go 
in  there.  Let  me  take  you  around  to  the  Met- 
ropole,  and  then  I'll  come  back  alone." 

"I  have  been  in  worse  places,"  she  returned 
in  low  tones.  And  then,  with  her  voice  breaking 
tremulously:  "Be  my  good  friend  just  a  Httle 
longer,  Victor!" 

He  took  her  arm  and  walked  her  into  the  gar- 
ishly lighted  bar-room,  bracing  himself  militantly 
for  what  might  happen.  But  nothing  happened. 
Dissipation  of  the  Western  variety  seldom  sinks 
below  the  level  of  a  certain  rude  gallantry,  quick 
to  recognize  the  good  and  pure  in  womankind. 
Instantly  a  hush  fell  upon  the  place.  The  quar- 
tets at  the  card-tables  held  their  hands,  and  a 
group  of  men  drinking  at  the  bar  put  down  their 
glasses.  One,  a  Tri'-Circ'  cow-boy  with  his  back 
turned,  let  slip  an  oath,  and  in  a  single  swift 
motion  his  nearest  comrade  garroted  him  with  a 
hairy  arm,  strangling  him  to  silence. 

As  if  guided  by  the  same  unerring  instinct 
which  had  made  her  choose  Haley's  out  of  a 
dozen  similar  hells.  Amy  Massingale  led  Brouil- 
lard swiftly  to  the  green  baize  doors  at  the  rear 
of  the  bar-room.  At  her  touch  the  swinging  doors 
gave  inward,  and  her  goal  was  reached. 

242 


"It's  all  gone,  little  girl;   it's  all  gone!' 


The  Abyss 

Three  faro  games,  each  with  its  inlaid  table, 
its  impassive  dealer,  its  armed  "lookout,"  and  its 
ring  of  silent  players,  lay  beyond  the  baize  doors. 
At  the  nearest  of  the  tables  there  was  a  stir,  and 
the  dealer  stopped  running  the  cards.  Some- 
body said,  "Let  him  get  out,"  and  then  an  old 
man,  bearded,  white-haired,  wild-eyed,  and  hag- 
gard almost  beyond  recognition,  pushed  his  chair 
away  from  the  table  and  stumbled  to  his  feet, 
his  hands  clutching  the  air  like  those  of  a  swimmer 
sinking  for  the  last  time. 

With  a  low  cry  the  girl  darted  across  the  inter- 
vening space  to  clasp  the  staggering  old  man  in 
her  arms  and  draw  him  away.  Brouillard  stood 
aside  as  they  came  slowly  toward  the  doors 
which  he  was  holding  open  for  them.  He  saw 
the  distorted  face-mask  of  a  soul  in  torment  and 
heard  the  mumbling  repetition  of  the  despairing 
words,  "It's  all  gone,  little  girl;  it's  all  gone!" 
and  then  he  removed  himself  quickly  beyond  the 
range  of  the  staring,  unseeing  eyes. 

For  in  the  lightning  flash  of  revealment  he 
realized  that  once  again  the  good  he  would  have 
done  had  turned  to  hideous  evil  in  the  doing,  and 
that  this  time  the  sword  thrust  of  the  blind- 
passion  impulse  had  gone  straight  to  the  heart 
of  love  itself. 

243 


XV 

The  Setting  of  the  Ebb 

CONTRARY  to  the  most  sanguine  expecta- 
tions of  the  speculators — contrary,  perhaps, 
even  to  those  of  Mr.  J.  Wesley  Cortwright — the 
upward  surge  in  Mirapolis  values,  following  the 
visit  of  the  "distinguished  citizens,"  proved  to  be 
more  than  a  tidal  wave:    it  was  a  series  of  them. 

The  time  was  fully  ripe  for  the  breaking  down 
of  the  final  barriers  of  prudence  and  common- 
place sanity.  Day  after  day  the  "curb"  markets 
were  reopened,  with  prices  mounting  skyward; 
and  when  the  news  of  how  fortunes  could  be  made 
in  a  day  in  the  Miracle  City  of  the  Niquoia  got 
abroad  in  the  press  despatches  there  was  a  fresh 
influx  of  mad  money  hunters  from  the  East,  and 
the  merry  game  of  buying  and  selling  that  which, 
inferentially  at  least,  had  no  legal  existence,  went 
on  with  ever-increasing  activity  and  an  utterly 
reckless  disregard  of  values  considered  as  a  basis 
for  future  returns  on  the  investment. 

Now,  if  never  before,  the  croaker  was  wrath- 
fully   shouted   down   and   silenced.     No  one   ad- 

244 


The  Setting  of  the  Ebb 

mitted,  or  seemed  to  admit,  the  possible  imper- 
manence  of  the  city.  So  far  from  it,  the  boast 
was  made  openly  that  Mirapolis  had  fairly  out- 
stripped the  Reclamation  Service  in  the  race  for 
supremacy,  and  that  among  the  first  acts  passed 
by  Congress  on  its  reassembling  would  be  one 
definitely  annulling  the  Buckskin  Desert  project, 
or,  at  any  rate,  so  much  of  it  as  might  be  threat- 
ening the  existence  of  the  great  gold  camp  in  the 
Niquoia  Valley. 

To  the  observer,  anxious  or  casual,  there  ap- 
peared to  be  reasonable  grounds  for  the  optimis- 
tic assertion.  It  was  an  indubitable  fact  that 
Brouillard's  force  had  been  cut  down,  first  to  one 
half,  and  later  to  barely  enough  men  to  keep  the 
crushers  and  mixers  moving  and  to  add  fresh 
layers  of  concrete  to  the  huge  wall  of  sufficient 
quantities  to  prevent  the  material — in  technical 
phrase — from  "dying." 

True,  in  the  new  furor  of  buying  and  selling 
and  booming  it  was  not  remarked  that  the  dis- 
charged government  employees  uniformly  dis- 
appeared from  the  city  and  the  valley  as  soon  as 
they  were  stricken  from  the  time  rolls.  True, 
also,  was  the  fact  that  Brouillard  said  nothing  for 
publication,  and  little  otherwise,  regarding  the 
successive  reductions  in  his  working  force.     But 

245 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

in  such  periods  of  insanity  it  is  only  the  favorable 
indications  which  are  marked  and  emphasized. 
The  work  on  the  great  dam  was  languishing  vis- 
ibly, as  every  one  could  see.  The  Navajos  had 
been  sent  home  to  their  reservation,  the  tepees 
were  gone,  and  two  thirds  of  the  camp  shacks 
were  empty. 

Past  these  material  facts,  plainly  to  be  seen 
and  weighed  and  measured  by  any  who  would 
take  the  time  to  consider  them,  there  was  a  strictly 
human  argument  which  was  even  more  significant. 
It  was  known  to  everybody  in  the  frenzied  market- 
place that  Brouillard  himself  was,  according  to 
his  means,  one  of  the  most  reckless  of  the  plung- 
ers, bu)'ing,  borrowing,  and  buying  again  as  if 
the  future  held  no  threat  of  a  possible  debacle. 
It  was  an  object-lesson  for  the  timid.  Those  who 
did  not  themselves  know  certainly  argued  that 
there  must  be  a  few  who  did  know,  and  among 
these  few  the  chief  of  the  Reclamation  Service 
must  be  in  the  very  foremost  rank. 

"You  just  keep  3'our  eye  on  Brouillard  and 
steer  your  own  boat  accordingly,"  was  the  w^ay 
Editor  Harlan  put  it  to  one  of  the  timid  ones. 
"He  knows  it  all,  backward  and  forward,  and 
from  the  middle  both  ways;  you  can  bet  your 
final   dollar   on   that.     And   you   mustn't   expect 

246 


The  Setting  of  the  Ebb 

him  to  talk.  In  his  position  he  can't  talk;  one 
of  the  things  he  is  drawing  his  salary  for  is  to 
keep  his  mouth  shut.  Besides,  what  a  man  may 
say  doesn't  necessarily  count  for  much.  It  is 
what  he  does." 

Thus  Harlan,  speaking,  as  it  were,  in  his  capac- 
ity of  a  public  dispenser  of  the  facts.  But  for 
himself  he  was  admitting  a  growing  curiosity 
about  the  disappearing  workmen,  and  this  curi- 
osity broke  ground  one  evening  when  he  chanced 
to  meet  Brouillard  at  the  club. 

"Somebody  was  telling  me  that  you  let  out 
another  batch  of  your  Buckskin  ditch  diggers 
to-day,  Brouillard,"  he  began.  And  then,  with- 
out any  bush  beating,  the  critical  question  was 
fired  point-blank:  "What  becomes  of  all  these 
fellows  you  are  dropping  ?  They  don't  stay  in  town 
or  go  to  the  mines — not  one  of  them." 

"Don't  they?"  said  Brouillard  with  discourag- 
ing brevity. 

"You  know  mighty  well  they  don't.  And  they 
don't  even  drift  out  like  other  people;  they  go  in 
bunches." 

"Anything  else  remarkable  up  your  sleeve?" 
was  the  careless  query. 

"Yes;  Conlan,  the  railroad  ticket  agent, 
started  to  tell  me  yesterday  that  they  were  go- 

247 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

ing  out  on  government  transportation — that  they 
didn't  buy  tickets  like  ordinary  folks;  started  to 
tell  me,  I  say,  because  he  immediately  took  it 
back  and  fell  all  over  himself  trying  to  renege." 

"You  are  a  born  gossip,  Harlan,  but  I  suppose 
you  can't  help  it.  Did  no  one  ever  tell  you  that 
a  part  of  the  government  contract  with  these 
laborers  includes  transportation  back  to  civiliza- 
tion when  they  are  discharged?" 

"No,  not  by  a  jugful!"  retorted  the  newspaper 
man.  "And  you're  not  telling  me  so  now.  For 
some  purpose  of  your  own  you  are  asking  me  to 
believe  it  without  being  told.  I  refuse.  This  is 
the  closed  season,  and  the  fish  are  not  biting." 

Brouillard  laughed  easily. 

"You  are  trying  mighty  hard  to  make  a  moun- 
tain out  of  a  mole-hill.  You  say  the  men  clear 
out  when  they  are  discharged — isn't  that  about 
what  you'd  do  if  you  were  out  of  a  job?" 

"Not  with  such  unfailing  unanimity  if  there 
were  several  hundred  of  me.  Mirapolis  isn't 
such  an  infernally  good  place  to  go  away  from — 
not  yet." 

Brouillard's  smile  matched  the  easy-going  laugh 
which  had  been  its  forerunner. 

"You  are  a  most  persistent  gadfly,  Harlan. 
If  I  tell  you  one  small,  trifling,  and  safely  unin- 

248 


The  Setting  of  the  Ebb 

flammable  fact,  can  I  trust  you  not  to  turn  it 
into  a  house  afire  in  the  columns  of  the  Spot- 
Light?" 

"You  know  well  enough  you  can!"  was  the 
eager  protest.  "When  have  I  ever  bleated  when 
I  should  have  kept  still?" 

"Well,  then,  the  fact  is  this:  the  men  leaving 
the  Niquoia  are  not  discharged  from  the  service. 
They  are  merely  transferred  to  the  Escalante 
project,  which  the  department  is  trying  to  push 
through  to  completion  before  the  northern  winter 
sets  in  and  freezes  the  concrete  in  the  mixers." 

"Ah!"  said  Harlan  with  a  quick  indrawing  of 
his  breath.  "That  brings  on  more  talk — about  a 
thousand  miles  of  it,  doesn't  it.?" 

"For  example?"  suggested  the  engineer. 

"To  put  it  baldly,  is  the  government  really 
quitting  on  the  Niquoia  project,  or  is  it  merely 
transferring  its  force  from  a  job  that  can  wait  to 
one  that  can't  wait?" 

Brouillard  smiled  again.  "You  see,"  he  said; 
"it  is  second  nature  for  you  pencil-pushers  to 
try  to  make  two  facts  grow  where  only  one  grew 
before.  Honestly,  now,  Harlan,  what  do  you 
think  about  it  yourself?  You  don't  need  any 
kindergartner  of  a  construction  man  to  help  you 
solve  a  little  problem  like  that,  do  you?" 

249 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"I'm  doing  a  little  sum  in  simple  equations," 
was  the  thoughtful  answer — "putting  this  bit 
of  information  which  you  have  just  given  me 
against  what  I  have  been  believing  to  be  a  pretty 
straight  tip  from  Washington." 

"What  is  your  tip?" 

"It's  this:  that  Congress  does  really  propose 
to  interfere  in  behalf  of  Mirapolis." 

"How  can  any  one  predict  that  when  Congress 
is  not  in  session?" 

"The  tip  asserts  that  the  string-pulling  is  all 
done.  It  will  be  a  quiet  bit  of  special  legislation 
smuggled  through,  I  suppose,  like  the  bills  for 
private  relief.  All  it  will  need  will  be  the  recom- 
mendation and  backing  of  a  handful  of  Western 
members  and  senators.  Nobody  else  is  very  vi- 
tally interested,  outside  of  your  own  department, 
and  there  are  always  plenty  of  clubs  at  hand  for 
killing  off  department  opposition — threats  of  cut- 
ting down  the  appropriations  and  so  on.  Properly 
engineered,  the  Mirapolis  bill  will  go  through 
like  a  greased  pig  under  a  gate.  You  know  it 
will." 

"You  say  nobody  else  is  vitally  interested — 
that's  a  mistake  big  enough  to  be  called  a  crime," 
said  Brouillard  with  emphasis.  "The  reclama- 
tion of  the  Buckskin  Desert  is  a  matter  of  mo- 

250 


The  Setting  of  the  Ebb 

ment  to  the  entire  nation.     Its  failure  would  be 
a  public  disaster." 

Harlan  laughed  derisively. 

"You  are  talking  through  your  hat  now — the 
salaried  government  engineer's  hat.  Let  your 
topographers  go  out  and  find  some  other  stream 
to  dam  up.  Let  them  hunt  up  some  other  desert 
to  reclaim.  The  supply  of  arid  lands  isn't  ex- 
hausted yet  by  a  good  bit." 

Brouillard  appeared  to  be  silenced  even  if  he 
were  not  fully  convinced.  After  a  time,  however, 
he  dropped  in  another  query. 

"How  straight  is  your  tip,  Harlan?" 

"So  straight  that  I'd  print  it  in  to-morrow's 
Spot-Light  if  I  wasn't  afraid  of  queering  the  deal 
by  being  too  previous.  The  necessary  backing 
has  been  secured,  and  the  bill  is  already  prepared. 
If  you  don't  believe  it,  ask  your  own  big  bosses 
in  Washington." 

"You  are  certain  that  your  information  didn't 
originate  right  here  in  Mirapolis — in  Mr.  Cort- 
wright's  office,  to  locate  it  more  exactly?" 

"It  didn't;  it  came  from  a  purely  personal 
source  and  direct  from  Washington." 

"And  the  source  couldn't  possibly  have  be- 
come contaminated  by  the  Cortwright  germs?" 

Harlan's  smile  was  the  face-wrinkling  of  sea- 
soned wisdom. 

251 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"You  are  pushing  me  too  hard,"  he  protested. 
"I  know  that  there  are  wheels  within  wheels. 
You'd  say  it  would  be  a  foxy  move  to  have  the 
local  newspaper  in  Mirapolis  get  such  a  tip  from 
a  strictly  unprejudiced  source.  I'll  have  to  ad- 
mit that  myself." 

Brouillard  looked  at  his  watch  and  reached  for 
his  hat. 

"It's  all  right,  Harlan,"  he  said  at  the  leave- 
taking.  "Believe  as  much  as  you  like,  but  take 
my  advice  in  just  one  small  matter.  Don't  buy 
Mirapolis  dirt  to  hold;  buy  it  to  sell — and  sell  the 
minute  you  see  your  profit.  I  told  you  I'd  give 
you  a  pointer  if  I  didn't  forget;    you've  got  it." 

For  the  better  part  of  a  fortnight  the  tidal 
waves  of  prosperity,  as  evinced  by  increasing 
speculative  values,  kept  on  rolling  in,  each  one 
apparently  a  little  higher  than  its  immediate 
predecessor.  Then  the  flood  began  to  subside, 
though  so  slowly  that  at  first  it  was  only  by  a 
careful  comparison  of  the  daily  transfers  that  the 
recession  could  be  measured. 

Causes  and  consequences  extraneous  to  the  city 
itself  contributed  to  the  almost  imperceptible 
reactionary  tendency.  For  one,  the  Buckskin 
Mining  and  Milling  Company  reluctantly  aban- 
doned its  pastime  of  ploughing  barren  furrows  on 

252 


The  Setting  of  the  Ebb 

Jack's  Mountain,  and  a  little  later  went  into 
liquidation,  as  the  phrase  ran,  though  the  East- 
ern bondholders  probably  called  it  bankruptcy. 
About  the  same  time  the  great  cement  plant, 
deprived  of  the  government  market  by  the  slack- 
ening of  the  work  on  the  dam,  reduced  its  output 
to  less  than  one  fourth  of  its  full  capacity.  Most 
portentous  of  all,  perhaps,  was  the  rumor  that 
the  placers  at  Quadjenai'  were  beginning  to  show 
signs  of  exhaustion.  It  was  even  whispered  about 
that  the  two  huge  gold  dredges  recently  installed 
were  not  paying  the  expenses  of  operating  them. 

Quite  naturally,  the  pulse  of  the  Wonder  City 
beat  sensitive  to  all  these  depressive  rumors  and 
incidents,  responding  slowly  at  first  but  a  little 
later  in  accelerated  throbbings  which  could  no 
longer  be  ignored  by  the  most  optimistic  bidder 
at  the  "curb"  exchanges. 

Still  there  was  no  panic.  As  the  activities  in 
local  sales  fell  off  and  the  MirapoHtans  themselves 
were  no  longer  crowding  the  curbs  or  standing 
in  line  at  the  real  estate  offices  for  their  turn  at 
the  listings,  the  prudent  ones,  with  Mr.  Cort- 
wright  and  his  chosen  associates  far  in  advance 
of  the  field,  were  placing  Mirapolis  holdings 
temptingly  on  view  in  distant  markets;  placing 
them  and  selling  them  with  a  blazonry  of  adver- 

253 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

tising  worthy  of  the  envy  of  those  who  have 
called  themselves  the  suburb  builders  of  Greater 
New  York. 

It  was  after  this  invasion  of  the  distant  market 
was  fully  in  train  that  Cortwright  once  more  sent 
for  Brouillard,  receiving  the  engineer  this  time  in 
the  newest  offices  of  the  power  company,  on  the 
many-times-bought-and-sold  corner  opposite  Bon- 
gras's. 

"Hello,  Brouillard!"  said  the  magnate  jocosely, 
indicating  a  chair  and  the  never-absent  open  box 
of  cigars  in  the  same  gesture.  "You're  getting 
to  be  as  much  of  a  stranger  as  a  man  might  wish 
his  worst  enemy  to  be.  Gene  says  you  are  neglect- 
ing her  shamefully,  but  she  seems  to  be  making 
a  pretty  good  Jack-at-a-pinch  of  the  English  lord.'* 

"You  sent  for  me?  "  Brouillard  broke  in  tersely. 
More  and  more  he  was  coming  to  acknowledge  a 
dull  rage  when  he  heard  the  call  of  his  master. 

"Yes.  What  about  the  dam?  Is  your  work 
going  to  start  up  again?  Or  is  it  going  off  for 
good?" 

Brouillard  bit  his  lip  to  keep  back  the  excla- 
mation of  astoundment  that  the  blunt  inquiry 
threatened  to  evoke.  To  assume  that  Mr.  Cort- 
wright did  not  know  all  there  was  to  be  known 
was  to  credit  the  incredible. 

254 


The  Setting  of  the  Ebb 

"I  told  you  a  good  while  ago  that  I  was  only 
the  government's  hired  man,"  he  replied.  "You 
doubtless  have  much  better  information  than  any 
I  can  give  you." 

"You  can  tell  me  what  your  orders  are — that's 
what  I  want  to  know." 

The  young  chief  of  construction  frowned  first, 
then  he  laughed. 

"What  has  given  you  the  impression  that  you 
own  me,  Mr.  Cortwright?  I  have  often  won- 
dered." 

"Well,  I  might  say  that  I  have  made  you  what 
you  are,  and " 

"That's  true;  the  truest  thing  you  ever  said," 
snapped  Brouillard. 

"And,  I  was  going  to  add,  I  can  unmake  you 
just  as  easily.  But  I  don't  want  to  be  savage 
with  you.  All  I'm  asking  is  a  little  information 
first,  and  a  Uttle  judicious  help  afterward.  What 
are  your  orders  from  the  department?" 

Brouillard  got  up  and  stood  over  the  stocky 
man  in  the  office  chair,  with  the  black  eyes  blazing. 

"Mr.  Cortwright,  I  said  a  moment  ago  that 
you  have  made  me  what  I  am,  and  you  have. 
I  am  infinitely  a  worse  man  than  you  are,  because 
I  know  better  and  you  don't.  It  is  no  excuse 
for  me  that  I  have  had  a  motive  which  I  haven't 

255 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

explained  to  you,  because,  as  I  once  told  you,  you 
couldn't  understand  it  in  a  thousand  years.  The 
evil  has  been  done  and  the  consequences,  to  you, 
to  me,  and  to  every  one  in  this  cursed  valley  are 
certain.  Facing  them  as  I  am  obliged  to  face 
them,  I  am  telling  you — but  what's  the  use? 
You  can't  make  a  tool  of  me  any  longer — that's 
all.  You  must  cook  your  meat  over  your  own 
fire.     I'm  out  of  it." 

"I  can  smash  you,"  said  the  man  in  the  chair, 
quite  without  heat. 

"No,  you  can't  even  do  that,"  was  the  equally 
cool  retort.  "No  man's  fate  is  in  another  man's 
hands.  If  you  choose  to  set  in  motion  the  ma- 
chinery which  will  grind  me  to  a  small-sized  vil- 
lain of  the  county-jail  variety,  it  is  I  myself  who 
will  furnish  every  foot-pound  of  the  power  that  is 
applied." 

He  was  moving  toward  the  door,  but  Cort- 
wright  stopped  him. 

"One  more  word  before  you  go,  Brouillard. 
It  is  to  be  war  between  us  from  this  on?" 

"I  don't  say  that.  It  would  be  awkward  for 
Miss  Genevieve.  Let  it  be  armed  neutrality  if 
you  like.  Don't  interfere  with  me  and  I  won't 
interfere  with  you." 

"Ah!"  said  the  millionaire.  "Now  you  have 
256 


The  Setting  of  the  Ebb 

brought  it  around  to  the  point  I  was  trying  to 
reach.  You  don't  want  to  have  anything  more 
to  do  with  me,  but  you  are  not  quite  ready  to 
cash  in  and  pull  out  of  the  game.  How  much 
money  have  you  got?" 

The  cool  impudence  of  the  question  brought  a 
dull  flush  to  the  younger  man's  face,  but  he  would 
give  the  enemy  no  advantage  in  the  matter  of 
superior  self-control. 

"That  is  scarcely  a  fair  question — even  be- 
tween armed  neutrals,"  he  objected.  "Why  do 
you  want  to  know.^" 

"I'm  asking  because  you  have  just  proposed 
the  non-interference  policy,  and  I'd  like  to  know 
how  fairly  you  mean  to  live  up  to  it.  A  little 
while  back  you  interfered  in  a  small  business 
matter  of  mine  very  pointedly.  What  became  of 
the  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  you  gave  old 
David  Massingale?" 

"How  do  3^ou  know  I  gave  him  a  hundred 
thousand  dollars?" 

"That's  dead  easy,"  laughed  the  man  in  the 
pivot  chair,  once  more  the  genial  buccaneer. 
"You  drew  a  check  for  that  amount  and  cashed 
it,  and  a  few  minutes  later  Massingale,  whose 
account  had  been  drawn  down  to  nothing,  bobs 
up   at   Schermerhorn's  window  with   exactly  the 

257 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

same  amount  in  loose  cash.  What  did  he  do 
with  it — gamble  it?" 

''That  is  his  own  affair,"  Brouillard  countered 
briefly. 

"Well,  the  future — next  month's  future — is  my 
affair.  If  you've  got  money  enough  to  interfere 
again — don't.  You'll  lose  it,  the  same  as  you 
did  before.  And  perhaps  I  sha'n't  take  the  sec- 
ond interference  as  good-naturedly  as  I  did  the 
first." 

"Is  that  all  you  have  to  say.?"  Brouillard 
asked  impatiently. 

"Not  quite.  I  don't  beheve  you  were  alto- 
gether in  earnest  a  minute  ago  when  you  ex- 
pressed your  desire  to  call  it  all  off.  You  don't 
want  the  Mirapolis  well  to  go  dry  right  now,  not 
one  bit  more  than  I  do." 

"I  have  been  trying  pretty  hard  to  make  you 
understand  that  it  is  a  matter  of  utter  indiffer- 
ence to  me." 

"But  you  haven't  succeeded  very  well;  it  isn't 
at  all  a  matter  of  indifference  to  you,"  the  mag- 
nate insisted  persuasively.  "As  things  are  shap- 
ing themselves  up  at  the  present  speaking,  you 
stand  to  lose,  not  only  the  hundred  thousand  you 
squandered  on  old  David,  but  all  you've  made 
besides.     I   keep   in   touch — it's   my   business   to 

258 


The  Setting  of  the  Ebb 

keep  in  touch.  You've  been  buying  bargains 
and  you  are  holding  them — for  the  simple  reason 
that  with  the  present  slowing-down  tendency  in 
the  saddle  you  can't  sell  and  make  any  money." 

"Well?" 

"I've  got  a  proposition  to  make  that  ought  to 
look  good  to  you.  What  we  need  just  now  in 
this  town  is  a  little  more  activity — something 
doing.  You  can  relieve  the  situation  if  you  feel 
Hke  it." 

"How?" 

"If  I  tell  you,  you  mustn't  go  and  use  it  against 
me.  That  would  be  a  low-down  welcher's  trick. 
But  you  won't.  See  here,  your  bureau  at  Wash- 
ington is  pretty  well  scared  up  over  the  prospect 
here.  It  is  known  in  the  capital  that  when  Con- 
gress convenes  there  is  going  to  be  a  dead-open- 
and-shut  fight  to  kill  this  Buckskin  reclamation 
project.  Very  well;  the  way  for  you  fellows  to 
win  out  is  to  hurry — finish  your  dam  and  finish 
it  quick,  before  Congress  or  anybody  else  can 
get  action." 

For  a  single  instant  Brouillard  was  puzzled. 
Then  he  began  to  understand. 

"Go  on,"  he  said. 

"What  I  was  going  to  suggest  is  this:  you  prod 
your  people  at  Washington  with  a  hot  wire;    tell 

259 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

'em  now's  the  time  to  strike  and  strike  hard. 
They'll  see  the  point,  and  if  you  ask  for  an  in- 
crease of  a  thousand  men  you'll  get  it.  Make  it 
two  thousand,  just  for  the  dramatic  effect.  We'll 
work  right  along  with  you  and  make  things  hum 
again.  We'll  start  up  the  cement  plant,  and  I 
don't  know  but  what  we  might  give  the  Buck- 
skin M.  &  M.  folks  a  small  hypodermic  that  would 
keep  'em  alive  while  we  are  taking  a  few  snap- 
shot pictures  of  Mirapolis  on  the  jump  again." 

"Let  me  get  it  straight,"  said  Brouillard,  put- 
ting his  back  against  the  door.  "You  fully  be- 
lieve you've  got  us  down;  that  eventually,  and 
before  the  water  is  turned  on,  Congress  will  pass 
a  bill  killing  the  Niquoia  project.  But  in  the 
meantime,  to  make  things  lively,  you'd  like  to 
have  the  Reclamation  Service  go  ahead  and  spend 
another  million  or  so  in  wages  that  can  be  turned 
loose  in  Mirapolis.     Is  that  it?" 

"You've  surrounded  it  very  neatly,"  laughed 
the  promoter.  "Once,  some  little  time  ago,  I 
might  have  felt  the  necessity  of  convincing  your 
scruples,  but  you've  cut  away  all  that  foolish- 
ness. It's  a  little  tough  on  our  good  old  Uncle 
Samuel,  I'll  admit,  but  it'll  be  only  a  pin-prick 
or  so  in  comparison  to  the  money  that  is  thrown 
away  every  time  Congress  passes  an  appropria- 

260 


The  Setting  of  the  Ebb 

tion  bill.  And,  putting  it  upon  the  dead  prac- 
tical basis,  Brouillard,  it's  your  own  and  only 
salvation — personally,  I  mean.  You've  got  to 
unload  or  go  broke,  and  you  can't  unload  on  a 
falling  market.  You  think  about  it  and  then 
get  quick  action  with  the  wire.  There  is  no 
time  to  lose." 

Brouillard  was  looking  past  Cortwright  and 
out  through  the  plate-glass  window  which  com- 
manded a  view  of  the  great  dam  and  its  network 
of  forms  and  stagings. 

"It  is  a  gambler's  bet  and  a  rather  desperate 
one,"  he  said  slowly.  "You  stand  to  win  all  or 
to  lose  all  in  making  it,  Mr.  Cortwright.  The 
town  is  balancing  on  the  knife-edge  of  a  panic  at 
this  moment.  Would  it  go  up,  or  down,  with  a 
sudden  resumption  of  work  on  the  dam?" 

"The  careless  thinker  would  say  that  it  would 
yell  'Fire!'  and  go  up  into  the  air  so  far  that  it 
could  never  climb  down,"  was  the  prompt  reply. 
"But  we'll  have  the  medicine  dropper  handy. 
In  the  first  place,  everybody  can  afford  to  stay 
and  boost  while  Uncle  Sam  is  spending  his  mil- 
lion or  so  right  here  in  the  middle  of  things. 
Nobody  will  want  to  pull  out  and  leave  that 
cow  unmilked.  In  the  second  place,  we've  got  a 
mighty  good  antidote  to  use  in  any  sure-enough 

261 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

case  of  hydrophobia  your  quick  dam  building  may 
start. 

"You  could  let  it  leak  out  that,  in  spite  of  all 
the  hurrah  and  rush  on  the  dam,  Congress  is  really 
going  to  interfere  before  we  are  ready  to  turn  the 
water  on,"  said  Brouillard  musingly  and  as  if  it 
were  only  his  thought  slipping  into  unconscious 
speech. 

"Precisely.  We  could  make  that  prop  hold  if 
you  were  actually  putting  the  top  course  on  your 
wall  and  making  preparations  to  drop  the  stop- 
gate  in  your  spillway." 

"I  see,"  was  the  rejoinder,  and  it  was  made 
in  the  same  half-absent  monotone.  "But  while 
we  are  still  on  the  knife-blade  edge  ...  a  little 
push  .  .  .  Mr.  Cortwright,  if  there  were  one  sol- 
itary righteous  man  left  in  Mirapolis " 

"There  isn't,"  chuckled  the  promoter,  turning 
back  to  his  desk  while  the  engineer  was  groping 
for  the  door-knob — "at  least,  nobody  with  that 
particular  brand  of  righteousness  backed  by  the 
needful  inside  information.  You  go  ahead  and 
do  your  part  and  we'll  do  the  rest." 


262 


XVI 

The  Man  on  the  Bank 

BROUILLARD,  walking  out  of  Mr.  Cort- 
wright's  new  offices  with  his  thoughts  afar, 
wondered  if  it  were  by  pure  coincidence  that  he 
found  Castner  apparently  waiting  for  him  on  the 
sidewalk. 

"Once  more  you  are  just  the  man  I  have  been 
wanting  to  see,"  the  young  missionary  began, 
promptly  making  use  of  the  chance  meeting. 
"May  I  break  in  with  a  bit  of  bad  news?" 

"There  is  no  such  thing  as  good  news  in 
this  God-forsaken  valley,  Castner.  What's  your 
grief?" 

"There  is  trouble  threatening  for  the  Cort- 
wrights.  Stephen  Massingale  is  out  and  about 
again,  and  I  was  told  this  morning  that  he  was 
filling  himself  up  with  bad  whiskey  and  looking 
for  the  man  who  shot  him." 

Brouillard  nodded  unsympathetically. 

"You  will  find  that  there  is  always  likely  to  be 
a  second  chapter  in  a  book  of  that  sort — if  the 
first  one  isn't  conclusive." 

263 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"But  there  mustn't  be  this  time,"  Castner  in- 
sisted warmly.  "We  must  stop  it;  it  is  our  bus- 
iness to  stop  it." 

"Your  business,  maybe;  it  falls  right  in  your 
line,  doesn't  it?" 

"No  more  in  mine  than  in  yours,"  was  the 
quick  retort. 

"Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?"  said  the  engineer 
pointlessly,  catching  step  with  the  long-legged 
stride  of  the  athletic  young  shepherd  of  souls. 

"Not  if  you  claim  kinship  with  Cain,  who  was 
the  originator  of  that  very  badly  outworn  query," 
came  the  answer  shot-like.  Then:  "What  has 
come  over  you  lately,  Brouillard?  You  are  a 
friend  of  the  Massingales;  I've  had  good  proof 
of  that.     Why  don't  you  care?" 

"Great  Heavens,  Castner,  I  do  care!  But  if 
you  had  a  cut  finger  you  wouldn't  go  to  a  man 
in  hell  to  get  it  tied  up,  would  you?" 

"You  mean  that  I  have  brought  my  cut  finger 
to  your 

"Yes,  I  meant  that,  and  the  rest  of  it,  too. 
I'm  no  fit  company  for  a  decent  man  to-day, 
Castner.  You'd  better  edge  off  and  leave  me 
alone." 

Castner  did  not  take  the  blunt  intimation. 
For  the  little  distance  intervening  between   the 

264 


The  Man  on  the  Bank 

power  company's  new  offices  and  the  Niquoia 
Building  he  tramped  beside  the  young  engineer 
in  silence.  But  at  the  entrance  to  the  Niquoia 
he  would  have  gone  his  way  if  Brouillard  had  not 
said  abruptly: 

*'I  gave  you  fair  warning;  I'm  not  looking  for 
a  chance  to  play  the  Good  Samaritan  to  anybody 
— not  even  to  Stephen  Massingale,  much  less  Van 
Bruce  Cortwright.  The  reason  is  because  I  have 
a  pretty  decent  back-load  of  my  own  to  carry. 
Come  up  to  my  rooms  if  you  can  spare  a  few 
minutes.  I  want  to  talk  to  a  man  who  hasn't 
parted  with  his  soul  for  a  money  equivalent — if 
there  is  such  a  man  left  in  this  bottomless  pit  of 
a  town." 

Castner  accepted  the  implied  challenge  soberly, 
and  together  they  ascended  to  Brouillard's  offices. 
Once  behind  the  closed  door,  Brouillard  struck 
out  viciously. 

"You  fellows  claim  to  hold  the  keys  of  the 
conscience  shop;  suppose  you  open  up  and  dole 
out  a  little  of  the  precious  commodity  to  me, 
Castner.  Is  it  ever  justifiable  to  do  evil  that 
good  may  come?" 

"No."     There  was  no  hesitation  in  the  denial. 

Brouillard's  laugh  was  harshly  derisive. 

"I  thought  you'd  say  that.  No  qualifications 
265 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

asked  for,  no  judicial  weighing  of  the  pros  and 
cons — the  evil  of  the  evil,  or  the  goodness  of  the 
good — just  a  plain,  bigoted  *No.'  " 

Castner  ran  a  hand  through  his  thick  shock  of 
dark  hair  and  looked  away  from  the  scoffer, 

"Extenuating  circumstances — is  that  what  you 
mean?  There  are  no  such  things  in  the  court 
of  conscience — the  enlightened  conscience.  Right 
is  right  and  wrong  is  wrong.  There  is  no  mid- 
dle ground  of  accommodation  between  the  two. 
You  know  that  as  well  as  I  do,  Brouillard." 

"Well,  then,  how  about  the  choice  between  two 
evils?     You'll  admit   that  there   are  times " 

Castner  was  shaking  his  head.  "That  is  a 
lying  proverb.  No  man  is  ever  compelled  to 
make  that  choice.     He  only  thinks  he  is." 

"That  is  all  you  know  about  it!"  was  the 
bitter  retort.  "What  can  you,  or  any  man  who 
sets  himself  apart  as  you  do,  know  about  the 
troubles  and  besetments  of  ordinary  people? 
You  sit  on  the  bank  of  the  river  and  see  the 
water  go  by;  what  do  you  know  about  the  agonies 
of  the  fellow  who  is  fighting  for  breath  and  life 
out  in  the  middle  of  the  stream?" 

"That  is  a  fallacy,  too,"  was  the  calm  reply. 
"I  am  a  man  as  other  men,  Brouillard.  My  coat 
makes  no  difference,  as  you  have  allowed  at  other 

266 


The  Man  on  the  Bank 

times  when  we  have  been  thrown  together. 
Moreover,  nobody  sits  on  the  bank  in  these  days. 
What  are  your  two  evils?" 

Brouillard  tilted  back  in  his  chair  and  point- 
edly ignored  the  direct  question. 

"Theories,"  he  said  half  contemptuously.  "And 
they  never  fit.  See  here,  Castner;  suppose  it 
was  clearly  your  duty,  as  a  man  and  a  Chris- 
tian and  to  subserve  some  good  end,  to  plant 
a  thousand  pounds  of  dynamite  in  the  base- 
ment of  this  building  and  fire  it.  Would  you 
do  it?" 

"The  case  isn't  supposable." 

"There  you  are!"  Brouillard  broke  out  impa- 
tiently. "I  told  you  you  were  sitting  on  the 
bank.  The  case  is  not  only  supposable;  it  exists 
as  an  actual  fact.  And  the  building  the  man 
ought  to  blow  to  high  heaven  contains  not  only 
a  number  of  measurably  innocent  people  but  one 
in  particular  for  whose  life  and  happiness  the 
man  would  barter  his  immortal  soul — if  he  has 
one. 

The  young  missionary  left  his  chair  and  began 
to  walk  back  and  forth  on  his  side  of  the  office 
desk. 

"You  want  counsel  and  you  are  not  willing 
to    buy  it  with  the  coin  of  confidence,"  he  said 

267 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

at  length,  adding:  "It  is  just  as  well,  perhaps.  I 
doubt  very  much  if  I  am  the  person  to  give  it  to 
you. 

"Why  do  you  doubt  it?  Isn't  it  a  part  of  your 
job.?" 

"Not  always.  I  am  not  your  conscience 
keeper,  Brouillard.  Don't  misunderstand  me.  I 
may  have  lived  a  year  or  so  longer  than  you  have, 
but  you  have  lived  more — a  great  deal  more. 
That  fact  might  be  set  aside,  but  there  is  another: 
in  the  life  of  every  man  there  is  some  one  per- 
son who  knows,  who  understands,  whose  word 
for  that  man  is  the  one  only  fitting  word  of  in- 
spiration. That  is  what  I  mean  when  I  say  that 
I  am  not  your  conscience  keeper.  Do  I  make  it 
clear?" 

"Granting  your  premises — yes.     Go  on." 

"I  will.  We'll  paste  that  leaf  down  and  turn 
another.  Though  I  can't  counsel  you,  I  can  still 
be  your  faithful  accuser.  You  have  committed  a 
great  sin,  Brouillard,  and  you  are  still  commit- 
ting it.  If  you  haven't  been  the  leader  in  the 
mad  scramble  for  riches  here  in  this  abandoned 
city,  you  have  been  only  a  step  behind  the  lead- 
ers. And  )^ou  were  the  one  man  who  should 
have  been  like  Caesar's  wife,  the  one  whose  ex- 
ample counted  for  most." 

268 


The  Man  on  the  Bank 

Brouillard  got  up  and  thrust  out  his  hand 
across  the  desk. 

"You  are  a  man,  Castner — and  that  is  better 
than  being  a  pnest,"  he  asserted  soberly.  "I'll 
take  back  all  the  spiteful  things  I've  been  saying. 
I'm  down  under  the  hoofs  of  the  horses,  and  it's 
only  human  nature  to  want  to  pull  somebody  else 
down.  You  are  one  of  the  few  men  in  Mirapolis 
whose  presence  has  been  a  blessing  instead  of  a 
curse — who  hasn't  had  a  purely  selfish  greed  to 
satisfy." 

Again  Castner  shook  his  head.  "There  hasn't 
been  much  that  I  could  do.  Brouillard,  it  is 
simply  dreadful — the  hard,  reckless,  half-demoniac 
spirit  of  this  place!  There  is  nothing  to  appeal 
to;  there  is  no  room  or  time  for  anything  but 
the  mad  money  chase  or  the  still  madder  dissipa- 
tion in  which  the  poor  wretches  seek  to  forget.  I 
can  only  try  here  and  there  to  drag  some  poor 
soul  out  of  the  fire  at  the  last  moment,  and  it 
makes  me  sick — sick  at  heart!" 

"You  mustn't  look  at  it  that  way,"  said  Brouil- 
lard, suddenly  turning  comforter.  "You  have 
been  doing  good  work  and  a  lot  of  it — more  than 
any  three  ordinary  men  could  stand  up  under. 
I  haven't  got  beyond  seeing  and  appreciating, 
Castner;  truly  I  have  not.     And  I'll  say  this:  if  I 

269 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

had  only  half  your  courage  .  .  .  but  it's  no  use, 
I'm  in  too  deep.  I  can't  see  any  farther  ahead 
than  a  man  born  blind.  There  is  one  end  for 
which  I  have  been  striving  from  the  very  first, 
and  it  is  still  unattained.  I'm  past  help  now.  I 
have  reached  a  point  at  which  I'd  pull  the  whole 
world  down  in  ruins  to  see  that  end  accomplished." 

The  young  missionary  took  another  turn  up 
and  down  the  room  and  then  came  back  to  the 
desk  for  his  hat.  At  the  leave-taking  he  said 
the  only  helpful  word  he  could  think  of. 

"Go  to  your  confessor,  Brouillard — your  real 
confessor — and  go  all  the  more  readily  if  that  one 
happens  to  be  a  good  woman — whom  you  love 
and  trust.  They  often  see  more  clearly  than  we 
do — the  good  women.  Try  it;  and  let  me  help 
where  a  man  can  help." 

For  a  long  hour  after  Castner  went  away  Brouil- 
lard sat  at  his  desk,  fighting  as  those  fight  who 
see  the  cause  lost,  and  who  know  they  only  make 
the  ruin  more  complete  by  struggling  on. 

Cortwright's  guess  had  found  its  mark.  He 
was  loaded  to  break  with  "front  feet"  and  op- 
tions and  "corners."  In  the  latest  speculative 
period  he  had  bought  and  mortgaged  and  bought 
again,  plunging  recklessly  with  the  sole  object 
of  wringing  another  hundred  thousand  out  of  the 

270 


The  Man  on  the  Bank 

drying  sponge  against  the  time  when  David  Mas- 
singale  should  need  it. 

There  seemed  to  be  no  other  hope.  It  had 
become  plainly  evident  after  a  little  time  that 
Cortwright's  extorted  promise  to  lift  the  smelt- 
ing embargo  from  the  "Little  Susan"  ore  had 
been  kept  only  in  the  letter;  that  he  had  removed 
one  obstacle  only  to  interpose  another.  The  new 
obstacle  was  in  the  transportation  field.  Pro- 
tests and  beseechings,  letters  to  traffic  officials, 
and  telegrams  to  railroad  headquarters  were  of 
no  avail.  In  spite  of  all  that  had  been  done, 
there  was  never  an  ore-car  to  come  over  the  range 
at  War  Arrow,  and  the  side-track  to  the  mine 
was  as  yet  uncompleted.  Brouillard  had  seen 
little  of  Massingale,  but  that  little  had  shown  him 
that  the  old  miner  was  in  despair. 

It  was  this  hopeless  situation  which  had  made 
Brouillard  bend  his  back  to  a  second  lifting  of 
the  "Little  Susan's"  enormous  burden.  At  first 
the  undertaking  seemed  easily  possible.  But 
with  the  drying  of  the  speculative  sponge  it  be- 
came increasingly  difficult.  More  and  more  he 
had  been  compelled  to  buy  and  hold,  until  now 
the  bare  attempt  to  unload  would  have  started 
the  panic  which  was  only  waiting  for  some  hedging 
seller  to  fire  the  train. 

Sitting  in  the  silence  of  the  sixth-floor  office  he 
271 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

saw  that  Cortwright  had  shown  him  the  one  way 
out.  Beyond  doubt,  the  resumption  in  full  force 
of  the  work  on  the  dam  would  galvanize  new  life 
into  Mirapolis,  temporarily,  at  least.  After  that, 
a  cautious  selling  campaign,  conducted  under 
cover  through  the  brokers,  might  save  the  day  for 
David  Massingale.  But  the  cost — the  heaping 
dishonor,  the  disloyalty  of  putting  his  service 
into  the  breach  and  wrecking  and  ruining  to  gain 
the  one  personal  end.   .   .   . 

The  sweat  stood  out  in  great  drops  on  his  fore- 
head when  he  finally  drew  a  pad  of  telegraph 
blanks  under  his  hand  and  began  to  write  a  mes- 
sage. Painstakingly  he  composed  it,  referring 
often  to  the  notes  in  his  field-book,  and  printing 
the  words  neatly  in  his  accurate,  clearly  defined 
handwriting. 

When  it  was  finished  he  translated  it  labori- 
ously into  the  department  code.  But  after  the 
copy  was  made  and  signed  he  did  not  ring  at  once 
for  a  messenger.  Instead,  he  put  the  two,  the  orig- 
inal and  the  cipher,  under  a  paper-weight  and  sat 
glooming  at  them,  as  if  they  had  been  his  own 
death-warrant — was  still  so  sitting  when  a  light 
tap  at  the  door  was  followed  by  a  soft  swishing 
of  silken  skirts,  a  faint  odor  of  crushed  violets, 
and  Genevieve  Cortwright  stood  beside  him. 

272 


XVII 
The  Circean  Cup 

WHILE  one  might  count  ten  the  silence  of 
the  upper  room  remained  unbroken,  and 
neither  the  man  nor  the  woman  spoke.  It  was 
not  the  first  time  by  many  that  Genevieve  Cort- 
wright  had  come  to  stand  beside  the  engineer's 
desk,  holding  him  with  smiling  eyes  and  a  charm- 
ing audacity  while  she  laid  her  commands  upon 
him  for  the  afternoon's  motoring  or  the  evening's 
bridge  party  or  what  other  social  diversion  she 
might  have  in  view. 

But  now  there  was  a  difference.  Brouillard 
felt  it  instinctively — and  in  the  momentary  silence 
saw  it  in  a  certain  hard  brilliance  of  the  beauti- 
ful eyes,  in  the  curving  of  the  ripe  lips,  half  scorn- 
ful, half  pathetic,  though  the  pathos  may  have 
been  only  a  touch  of  self-pity  born  of  the  knowl- 
edge that  the  world  of  the  luxury-lapped  has  so 
little  to  offer  once  the  cold  finger  of  satiety  has 
been  laid  upon  the  throbbing  pulse  of  fruition. 

"You  have  been  quarrelling  with  father  again," 

273 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

she  said,  with  an  abruptness  that  was  altogether 
foreign  to  her  habitual  attitude  toward  him.  "I 
have  come  to  try  to  make  peace.  Won't  you  ask 
me  to  sit  down?" 

He  recalled  himself  with  a  start  from  his  ab- 
stracted study  of  the  faultless  contour  of  cheek 
and  chin  and  rounded  throat  and  placed  a  chair 
for  her,  apologizing  for  the  momentary  aberra- 
tion and  slipping  easily  from  apology  into  ex- 
planation. 

"It  was  good  of  you  to  try  to  bring  the  wine 
and  oil,"  he  said.  "But  it  was  scarcely  a  quarrel; 
the  king  doesn't  quarrel  with  his  subjects." 

"Now  you  are  making  impossible  all  the  things 
I  came  to  say,"  she  protested,  with  a  note  of  ear- 
nestness in  her  voice  that  he  had  rarely  heard. 
*'Tell  me  what  it  was  about." 

"I  am  afraid  it  wouldn't  interest  you  in  the 
least,"  he  returned  evasively. 

"I  suppose  you  are  punishing  me  now  for  the 
*  giddy  butterfly'  pose  which  you  once  said  was 
mine.  Isn't  there  a  possibility,  just  the  least 
little  shadow  of  a  possibility,  that  I  don't  deserve 
to  be  punished?" 

He  had  sat  down  facing  her  and  his  thought 
was  quite  alien  to  the  words  when  he  tried  again. 

"You  wouldn't  understand.  It  was  merely  a 
274 


The  Circean  Cup 

disagreement  in  a  matter  of — a  matter  of  busi- 
ness. 

"Perhaps  I  can  understand  more  than  you  give 
me  credit  for,"  she  countered,  with  an  upflash  of 
the  captivating  eyes.  "Perhaps  I  can  be  hurt 
where  you  have  been  thinking  that  the  armor 
of  frivoHty,  or  ignorance,  or  indifference  is  the 
thickest." 

"No,  you  wouldn't  be  hurt,"  he  denied,  in 
sober  finaUty. 

"How  can  you  tell?  Can  you  read  minds  and 
hearts  as  you  do  your  maps  and  drawings?  Must 
I  be  set  down  as  hopelessly  and  irreclaimably  friv- 
olous just  because  I  have  chosen  to  laugh  when 
possibly  another  woman  might  have  cried?" 

"Oh,  no,"  he  denied  again.  Then  he  tried  to 
meet  her  fairly  on  the  new  ground.  "You  mustn't 
accuse  yourself.  You  are  of  your  own  world  and 
you  can't  very  well  help  being  of  it.  Besides,  it 
is  a  pleasant  world." 

"But  an  exceedingly  shallow  one,  you  would 
say.  But  why  not,  Mr.  Brouillard?  What  do 
we  get  out  of  life  more  than  the  day's  dole  of — 
well,  of  whatever  we  care  most  for?  I  suppose 
one  ought  to  be  properly  shocked  at  the  big  elec- 
tric sign  Monsieur  Bongras  has  put  up  over  the 
entrance  to  his  cafe:    'Let  us  eat,  drink,  and  be 

275 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

merry,  for  to-morrov/  we  die.'  He  meant  it  as  a 
cynical  gibe  at  the  expense  of  Mirapolis,  of  course; 
but  do  you  know  it  appeals  to  me — it  makes  me 
think." 

"I'm  listening,"  said  Brouillard.  "Convert  me 
if  you  can." 

"Oh,  I  don't  know  how  to  say  it,  or  perhaps 
even  how  to  think  it.  But  when  I  see  Monsieur 
Bongras's  cynical  little  fling  I  wonder  if  it  isn't 
the  real  philosophy,  after  all.  Why  should  we 
be  always  looking  forward  and  striving  and  try- 
ing foolishly  to  climb  to  some  high  plane  where 
the  air  is  sure  to  be  so  rare  that  we  couldn't  pos- 
sibly breathe  it.^" 

Brouillard's  smile  was  a  mere  eye-lifting  of 
grave  reminiscence  when  he  said:  "Some  of  us 
have  quit  looking  forward — quit  trying  to  climb 
— and  that  without  even  the  poor  hope  of  reap- 
ing the  reward  that  Poodles's  quotation  offsets." 

Miss  Cortwright  left  her  chair  and  began  to 
make  an  aimless  circuit  of  the  room,  passing  the 
blue-prints  on  the  walls  in  slow  review,  and  com- 
ing finally  to  the  window  looking  out  over  the 
city  and  across  to  the  gray,  timber-crowned  wall 
of  the  mighty  structure  spanning  the  gap  be- 
tween the  Niquoia's  two  sentinel  mountains. 

"You  haven't  told  me  yet  what  your  disagree- 
276 


The  Circean  Cup 

ment  with  father  was  about,"  she  reminded  him 
at  length;  and  before  he  could  speak:  "You 
needn't,  because  I  know.  You  have  been  get- 
ting in  his  way — financially,  and  he  has  been 
getting  in  your  way — ethically.  You  are  both  in 
the  wrong." 

"Yes?"  said  Brouillard,  neither  agreeing  nor 
denying. 

"Yes.  Father  thinks  too  much  of  making 
money — a  great  deal  too  much;    and  you " 

"Well?"  he  prompted,  when  the  pause  threat- 
ened to  become  a  break.  "I  am  waiting  to  hear 
my  indictment." 

"You  puzzle  me,"  she  acknowledged  frankly. 
"At  first  I  thought  you  were  going  to  be  a  thirsty 
money  hunter  like  all  the  others.  And — and  I 
couldn't  quite  understand  why  you  should  be. 
Now  I  know,  or  partly  know.  You  had  an  ob- 
ject that  was  different  from  that  of  the  others. 
You  wanted  to  buy  some  one  thing — not  every- 
thing, as  most  people  do.  But  there  is  some- 
thing missing,  and  that  is  what  puzzles  me.  I 
don't  know  what  it  is  that  you  want  to  buy." 

"There  have  been  two  things,"  he  broke  in. 
"One  of  them  you  know,  because  I  spoke  of  it 
to  you  long  ago.     The  other " 

"The  other  is  connected  in  some  way  with  the 
277 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

Massingales;  so  much  I  have  been  able  to  gather 
from  what  father  said." 

"Since  you  know  part,  you  may  know  all,"  he 
went  on.  "David  Massingale  owes  your  father — 
technically,  at  least — one  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars, which  he  can't  pay;  which  your  father  isn't 
going  to  let  him  pay,  if  he  can  help  it.  And  if 
Massingale  doesn't  pay  he  will  lose  his  mine." 

"You  interested  yourself.?  Would  you  mind 
telling  me  just  why?"  she  asked. 

"That  is  one  of  the  things  you  couldn't  under- 
stand." 

She  turned  a  calmly  smiling  face  toward  him. 

"Oh,  you  are  mistaken,  greatly  mistaken.  I 
can  understand  it  very  well,  indeed.  You  are  in 
love  with  David  Massingale's  daughter." 

Once  more  he  neither  denied  nor  affirmed,  and 
she  had  turned  to  face  the  window  again  when 
she  went  on  in  the  same  unmoved  tone: 

"It  was  fine.  I  can  appreciate  such  devotion 
even  if  I  can't  fully  sympathize  with  it.  Every- 
body should  be  in  love  like  that — once.  Every 
woman  demands  that  kind  of  love — once.  But 
afterward,  you  know — if  one  should  be  content 
to  take  the  good  the  gods  provide.  .  .  ."  When 
she  began  again  at  the  end  of  the  eloquent  little 
pause  there  was  a  new  nott    in  her  voice,  a  note 

278 


The  Circean  Cup 

soothingly  suggestive  of  swaying  poppies  in  sun- 
lit fields,  of  ease  and  peace  and  the  ideal  heights 
receding,  of  rose-strewn  paths  pleasant  to  the  feet 
of  the  weary  wayfarer.  "Why  shouldn't  we  take 
to-day,  the  only  day  we  can  be  sure  of  having, 
and  use  and  enjoy  it  while  it  is  ours?  Money? — 
there  is  money  enough  in  the  world,  God  knows; 
enough  and  to  spare  for  anything  that  is  worth 
the  buying.  I  have  money,  if  that  is  all — money 
of  my  own.  And,  if  I  should  ask  him,  father 
would  give  me  the  'Little  Susan'  outright,  to  do 
with  it  as  I  pleased." 

Brouillard  was  leaning  back  in  his  chair  study- 
ing her  faultless  profile  as  she  talked,  and  the  full 
meaning  of  what  she  was  saying  did  not  come  to 
him  at  once.  But  when  it  did  he  sprang  up  and 
went  to  stand  beside  her.  And  all  the  honesty 
and  manhood  the  evil  days  had  spared  went  mto 
what  he  said  to  her. 

"I  was  a  coward  a  moment  ago,  Miss  Gen- 
evieve, when  you  spoke  of  the  motive  which  had 
prompted  me  to  help  David  Massingale.  But 
you  knew  and  you  said  the  words  for  me.  When 
you  love  as  I  do  you  will  understand  that  there  is 
an  ecstasy  in  the  very  madness  of  it  that  is  more 
precious  than  all  the  joys  of  a  gold-mounted  para- 
dise without  it.     I  must  go  on  as  I  have  begun." 

279 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"You  will  marry  her?"  she  asked  softly. 

"There  has  never  been  any  hope  of  that,  I 
think;  not  from  the  very  beginning.  While  I 
remained  an  honest  man  there  was  the  insur- 
mountable obstacle  I  once  told  you  of — the  honor 
debt  my  father  left  me.  And  when  I  became  a 
thief  and  a  grafter  for  love's  sake  I  put  myself 
out  of  the  running,  definitely  and  hopelessly." 

"Has  she  told  you  so?" 

"Not  in  so  many  words;  there  was  no  need. 
There  can  be  no  fellowship  between  light  and 
darkness." 

Miss  Cortwright's  beautiful  eyes  mirrored  well- 
bred  incredulity,  and  there  was  the  faintest  pos- 
sible suggestion  of  lenient  scorn  in  her  smile. 

"What  a  pedestal  you  have  built  for  her!"  she 
said.  "Has  it  never  occurred  to  you  that  she 
may  be  just  a  woman — like  other  women?  Tell 
me,  Mr.  Brouillard,  have  you  asked  her  to  marry 
your 

"You  know  very  well  that  I  haven't." 

"Then,  if  you  value  your  peace  of  mind,  don't. 
She  would  probably  say  'yes'  and  you  would  be 
miserable  forever  after.  Ideals  are  exceedingly 
fragile  things,  you  know.  They  are  made  to  be 
looked  up  to,  not  handled." 

"Possibly  they  are,"  he  said,  as  one  who  would 
280 


The  Circean  Cup 

rather  concede  than  dispute.  The  reaction  was 
setting  in,  bringing  a  discomforting  conviction 
that  he  had  opened  the  door  of  an  inner  sanc- 
tuary to  unsympathetic  eyes. 

Followed  a  httle  pause,  which  was  threatening 
to  become  awkward  when  Miss  Cortwright  broke 
it  and  went  back  to  the  beginning  of  things. 

"I  came  to  tender  my  good  offices  in  the — 
the  disagreement,  as  you  call  it,  between  you  and 
father.  Can't  you  be  complaisant  for  once,  in  a 
way,  Mr.  Brouillard.^^" 

Brouillard's  laugh  came  because  it  was  sum- 
moned, but  there  was  no  mirth  in  it. 

"I  have  never  been  anything  else  but  complai- 
sant in  the  little  set-tos  with  your  father,  Miss 
Genevieve.  He  has  always  carried  too  many 
guns  for  me.  You  may  tell  him  that  I  am  acting 
upon  his  suggestion,  if  you  please — that  the  tele- 
gram to  Washington  is  written.  He  will  under- 
stand." 

"And  about  this  Massingale  affair — you  will 
not  interfere  again?" 

Brouillard's  jaw  muscles  began  to  set  in  the 
fighting  lines. 

"Does  he  make  that  a  command?"  he  asked. 

"Oh,  I  fancy  not;  at  least,  I  didn't  hear  him 
say  anything  like  that.     I  am  merely  speaking  as 

281 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

your  friend.  You  will  not  be  allowed  to  do  as 
you  wish  to  do.  I  know  my  father  better  than 
you  do,  Mr.  Brouillard." 

''What  he  has  done,  and  what  he  proposes  to 
do,  in  Massingale's  affair,  is  little  short  of  high- 
way robbery.  Miss  Genevieve." 

"From  your  point  of  view,  you  mean.  He  will 
call  it  'business'  and  cite  you  a  thousand  prec- 
edents in  every-day  life.  But  let  it  go.  I've 
talked  so  much  about  business  that  I'm  tired. 
Let  me  see,  what  was  the  other  thing  I  came  up 
here  for? — oh,  yes,  I  remember  now.  We  are 
making  up  a  party  to  motor  down  to  the  Tri'- 
Circ'  Ranch  for  a  cow-boy  supper  with  Lord 
Falkland.  There  is  a  place  in  our  car  for  you, 
and  I  know  Sophie  Schermerhorn  would  be  de- 
lighted if  you  should  call  her  up  and  tell  her  you 
are  going." 

She  had  turned  toward  the  door  and  he  went 
to  open  it  for  her. 

"I  am  afraid  I  shall  have  to  offer  my  regrets 
to  you,  and  to  Miss  Schermerhorn  as  well,  if  she 
needs  them,"  he  said,  with  the  proper  outward 
show  of  disappointment. 

"Is  it  business .f"'  she  laughed. 

"Yes,  it  is  business." 

"Good-by,  then.  I'm  sorry  you  have  to  work 
282 


The  Circean  Cup 

so  hard.  If  Miss  Massingale  were  only  rich — 
but  I  forgot,  the  ideals  would  still  be  in  the  way. 
No,  don't  come  to  the  elevator.  I  can  at  least 
do  that  much  for  myself,  if  I  am  a  'giddy  butter- 
fly.' " 

After  she  had  gone  Brouillard  went  back  to  the 
window  and  stood  with  his  hands  behind  him 
looking  out  at  the  great  dam  with  its  stag- 
ings and  runways  almost  deserted.  But  when  the 
westering  sun  was  beginning  to  emphasize  the 
staging  timbers  whose  shadow  fingers  would 
presently  be  reaching  out  toward  the  city  he 
went  around  to  his  chair  and  sat  down  to  take 
the  Washington  telegram  from  beneath  its  paper- 
weight. Nothing  vital,  nothing  in  any  manner 
changeful  of  the  hard  conditions,  had  happened 
since  he  had  signed  his  name  to  the  cipher  at  the 
end  of  the  former  struggle.  Notwithstanding, 
the  struggle  was  instantly  renewed,  and  once 
more  he  found  himself  battling  hopelessly  with 
the  undertow  in  the  tide-way  of  indecision. 


283 


XVIII 

Love's  Crucible 

ir?OR  half  an  hour  after  the  motor-cars  of  the 
Falkland  supper  party  had  rolled  away  from 
the  side  entrance  of  the  Hotel  Metropole,  Brouil- 
lard  sat  at  his  desk  in  the  empty  office  with  the 
momentous  telegram  before  him,  searching  blindly 
for  some  alternative  to  the  final  act  of  treachery 
which  would  be  consummated  in  the  sending  of 
the  wire. 

Since,  by  reason  of  Cortwright's  tamperings 
with  the  smelter  people  and  the  railroad,  the  "Lit- 
tle Susan"  had  become  a  locked  treasure  vault, 
the  engineer,  acting  upon  his  own  initiative, 
had  tried  the  law.  As  soon  as  he  had  ascertained 
that  David  Masslngale  had  been  given  sixty  days 
longer  to  live,  solely  because  the  buccaneers  chose 
to  take  his  mine  rather  than  his  money,  Brouil- 
lard  had  submitted  the  facts  in  the  case  to  a 
trusted  lawyer  friend  in  the  East. 

This  hope  had  pulled  in  two  like  a  frayed  cord. 
Massingale  must  pay  the  bank  or  lose  all.  Until 
he    had    obtained    possession    of  the    promissory 

284 


Lovers  Crucible 

notes  there  would  be  no  crevice  in  which  to  drive 
any  legal  wedge.  And  even  then,  unless  some 
pressure  could  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  graft- 
ers to  make  them  disgorge,  there  was  no  chance 
of  Massingale's  recovering  more  than  his  allotted 
two  thirds  of  the  stock;  in  other  words,  he  would 
still  stand  committed  to  the  agreement  by  which 
he  had  bound  himself  to  make  the  grafters  a 
present,  in  fee  simple,  of  one  third  of  his  mine. 

Brouillard  had  written  one  more  letter  to  the 
lawyer.  In  it  he  had  asked  how  David  Massin- 
gale  could  be  unassailably  reinstated  in  his  rights 
as  the  sole  owner  of  the  "Little  Susan."  The 
answer  had  come  promptly  and  it  was  explicit. 
"Only  by  the  repayment  of  such  sums  as  had 
been  actually  expended  in  the  reorganization  and 
on  the  betterments — for  the  modernizing  machin- 
ery and  improvements — and  the  voluntary  sur- 
render, by  the  other  parties  to  the  agreement,  of 
the  stock  in  dispute,"  the  lawyer  had  written; 
and  Brouillard  had  smiled  at  the  thought  of 
Cortwright  voluntarily  surrendering  anything 
which  w-as  once  well  within  the  grasp  of  his  pudgy 
hands. 

Failing  to  start  the  legal  wedge,  Brouillard  had 
dipped — also  without  consulting  Massingale — 
into    the    matter    of    land    titles.     The    "Little 

285 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

Susan"  was  legally  patented  under  the  land  laws, 
and  Massingale's  title,  if  the  mine  were  located 
upon  government  land,  was  without  a  flaw.  But 
on  a  former  reclamation  project  Brouillard  had 
been  brought  in  contact  with  some  of  the  curious 
title  litigation  growing  out  of  the  old  Spanish 
grants;  and  in  at  least  one  instance  he  had  seen 
a  government  patent  invalidated  thereby. 

As  a  man  in  reasonably  close  touch  with  his 
superiors  in  Washington,  the  chief  of  construc- 
tion knew  that  there  was  a  Spanish-grant  in- 
volvement which  had  at  one  time  threatened  to 
at  least  delay  the  Niquoia  project.  How  it  had 
been  settled  finally  he  did  not  know;  but  after 
the  legal  failure  he  had  written  to  a  man — a  col- 
lege classmate  of  his  own — in  the  bureau  of  land 
statistics,  asking  for  data  which  would  enable 
him  to  locate  exactly  the  Niquoia-touching  bound- 
aries of  the  great  Coronida  Grant.  To  this  letter 
no  reply  had  as  yet  been  received.  Brouillard 
had  cause  to  know  with  what  slowness  a  simple 
matter  of  information  can  ooze  out  of  a  depart- 
ment bureau.  The  letter — which,  after  all,  might 
contain  nothing  helpful — lingered  on  the  way,  and 
the  crisis,  the  turning-point  beyond  which  there 
could  be  no  redemption  in  a  revival  of  the  specu- 
lative craze,  had  arrived. 

286 


Love's  Crucible 

Brouillard  took  up  the  draught  of  the  Washing- 
ton telegram  and  read  it  over.  He  was  cooler 
now,  and  he  saw  that  it  was  only  as  it  came  from 
the  hand  of  a  traitor,  who  could  and  would  de- 
liberately wreck  the  train  of  events  it  might  set 
in  motion,  that  it  became  a  betrayal.  Writing  as 
the  commanding  officer  in  the  field,  he  had  re- 
stated the  facts — facts  doubtless  well  known  in 
the  department — the  probabihty  that  Congress 
would  intervene  and  the  hold  the  opposition  was 
gaining  by  the  suspension  of  the  work  on  the  dam. 
If  the  work  could  be  pushed  energetically  and 
at  once,  there  was  a  possibility  that  the  opposi- 
tion would  become  discouraged  and  voluntarily 
withdraw.  Would  the  department  place  the  men 
and  the  means  instantly  at  his  disposal? 

"If  I  were  the  honest  man  I  am  supposed  to 
be,  that  is  precisely  the  message  I  ought  to  send," 
he  mused  reflectively.  "It  is  only  as  the  crooked 
devil  in  possession  of  me  will  drive  me  to  nullify 
the  effort  and  make  it  of  no  efl^ect  that  it  becomes 
a  crime;  that  and  the  fact  that  I  can  never  be 
sure  that  the  Cortwright  gang  hasn't  the  inside 
track  and  will  not  win  out  in  spite  of  all  efforts. 
That  is  the  touchstone  of  the  whole  degrading 
business.  I'm  afraid  Cortwright  has  the  inside 
track.  If  I  could  only  get  a  little  clear-sighted 
daylight  on  the  damnable  tangle!" 

287 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

Obeying  a  sudden  impulse,  he  thrust  the  two 
copies  of  the  telegram  under  the  paper-weight 
again,  sprang  up,  put  on  his  hat,  and  left  the 
building.  A  few  minutes  later  he  was  on  the 
porch  of  the  stuccoed  villa  in  the  Quadjenai  road 
and  was  saying  gravely  to  the  young  woman  who 
had  been  reading  in  the  hammock:  "You  are 
staying  too  closely  at  home.  Get  your  coat  and 
hat  and  walk  with  me  up  to  the  'Little  Susan.' 
It  will  do  you  good." 

The  afternoon  was  waning  and  the  sun,  dip- 
ping to  the  horizon,  hung  like  a  huge  golden  ball 
over  the  yellow  immensities  of  the  distant  Buck- 
skin as  they  topped  the  final  ascent  in  the  steep 
trail  and  went  to  sit  on  the  steps  of  the  deserted 
home  cabin  at  the  mine. 

For  a  time  neither  spoke,  and  the  stillness  of 
the  air  contributed  something  to  the  high-moun- 
tain silence,  which  was  almost  oppressive.  Work 
had  been  stopped  in  the  mine  at  the  end  of  the 
previous  week,  Massingale  declaring,  morosely, 
that  until  he  knew  whose  ore  he  was  digging  he 
would  dig  no  more.  Presumably  there  was  a 
watchman,  but  if  so  he  was  invisible  to  the  two 
on  the  cabin  step,  and  the  high  view-point  was 
theirs  alone. 

"How  did  you  know  that  1  have  been  wanting 
288 


Love's  Crucible 

to  come  up  here  once  more  before  everything  is 
changed?"  said  the  girl  at  length,  patting  the 
roughly  hewn  log  step  as  if  it  were  a  sentient 
thing  to  feel  the  caress. 

"I  didn't  know  it,"  Brouillard  denied.  "I 
only  knew  that  I  wanted  to  get  out  of  Gomorrah 
for  a  little  while,  to  come  up  here  with  you  and 
get  the  reek  of  the  pit  out  of  my  nostrils." 

"I  know,"  she  rejoined,  with  the  quick  compre- 
hension which  never  failed  him.  "It  is  good  to 
be  out  of  it,  to  be  up  here  where  we  can  look 
down  upon  it  and  see  it  in  its  true  perspective — 
as  a  mere  little  impertinent  blot  on  the  land- 
scape. It's  only  that,  after  all,  Victor.  See  how 
the  great  dam — your  work — overshadows  it." 

"That  is  one  of  the  things  I  hoped  I  might  be 
able  to  see  if  I  came  here  with  you,"  he  returned 
slowly.  "But  I  can't  get  your  point  of  view. 
Amy.     I  shall  never  be  able  to  get  it  again." 

"You  did  have  it  once,"  she  asserted.  "Or 
rather,  you  had  a  better  one  of  your  own.  Has 
Gomorrah  changed  it?" 

"No,  not  Gomorrah.  I  could  shut  the  waste- 
gates  and  drown  the  place  to-morrow  for  all  that 
Mirapolis,  or  anything  in  it,  means  to  me.  But 
something  has  changed  the  point  of  view  for  me 
past  mending,  since  that  first  day  when  we  sat 

289 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

here  together  and  looked  down  upon  the  begin- 
nings of  the  Reclamation  construction  camp — 
before  Gomorrah  was  ever  thought  of." 

"I  know,"  she  said  again.  "But  that  dread- 
ful city  is  responsible.  It  has  robbed  us  all, 
Victor;   but  you  more  than  any,  I'm  afraid." 

"No,"  he  objected.  "Mirapolis  has  been  only 
a  means  to  an  end.  The  thing  that  has  changed 
my  point  of  view — my  entire  life — is  love,  as  I 
have  told  you  once  before." 

*'0h,  no,"  she  protested  gently,  rising  to  take 
her  old  place,  with  her  back  to  the  porch  post 
and  her  hands  behind  her.  And  then,  still  more 
gently:  "That  is  almost  like  sacrilege,  Victor,  for 
love  is  sacred." 

"I  can't  help  it.  Love  has  made  a  great 
scoundrel  of  me.  Amy;  a  criminal,  if  man's  laws 
were  as  closely  meshed  as  God's." 

"I  can't  believe  that,"  she  dissented  loyally. 

"It  is  true.  I  have  betrayed  my  trust.  Cort- 
wright  will  make  good  in  all  of  his  despicable 
schemes.  Congress  will  intervene  and  the  Ni- 
quoia  project  will  be  abandoned." 

"No,"  she  insisted.  "Take  a  good,  deep  breath 
of  this  pure,  clean,  high-mountain  air  and  think 
again.  Mirapolis  is  dying,  even  now,  though  no- 
body dares  admit  it.     But  it  is.     Tig  Smith  hears 

290 


Love's  Crucible 

everything,  and  he  told  father  last  night  that 
the  rumor  about  the  Quadjenai  placers  is  true. 
They  are  worked  out,  and  already  the  men  have 
begun  to  move  up  the  river  in  search  of  new 
ground.  Tig  said  that  in  another  week  there 
wouldn't  be  a  dozen  sluice-boxes  working." 

"I  have  known  about  the  Quadjenai  failure  for 
the  past  two  weeks,"  Brouillard  put  in.  "For  at 
least  that  length  of  time  the  two  steam  dredges 
have  been  handling  absolutely  barren  gravel,  and 
the  men  in  charge  of  them  have  had  orders  to 
go  on  dredging  and  say  nothing.  Mirapolis  is 
no  longer  a  gold  camp;  but,  nevertheless,  it  will 
boom  again — long  enough  to  let  Mr.  J.  Wesley 
Cortwright  and  his  fellow  buccaneers  loot  it  and 
get  away." 

"How  can  you  know  that?"  she  asked  curi- 
ously. 

"I  know  it  because  I  am  going  to  bring  it  to 
pass. 

"You?" 

"Yes,  I.  It  is  the  final  act  in  the  play.  And 
my  part  in  this  act  is  the  Judas  part — as  it  has 
been  in  the  others." 

She  was  looking  down  at  him  with  wide-open 
eyes. 

"If  any  one  else  had  said  that  of  you  .  .  . 
291 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

but  I  can't  believe  it!  I  know  you,  Victor;  I 
think  I  must  have  known  you  in  the  other  world 
— the  one  before  this — and  there  we  climbed  the 
heights,  in  the  clear  sunlight,  together." 

"There  was  one  thing  you  didn't  learn  about 
me — in  that  other  world  you  speak  of,"  he  said, 
falling  in  with  her  allegory.  "You  didn't  dis- 
cover that  I  could  become  a  wretched  cheat  and 
a  traitor  for  love  of  you.  Perhaps  it  wasn't  nec- 
essary— there." 

"Tell  me,"  she  begged  briefly;  and,  since  he 
was  staring  fixedly  at  the  scored  slopes  of  Jack's 
Mountain,  he  did  not  see  that  she  caught  her  lip 
between  her  teeth  to  stop  its  trembling. 

"Part  of  it  you  know:  how  I  did  what  I  could 
to  bring  the  railroad,  and  how  your  brother's  tea- 
spoonful  of  nuggets  was  made  to  work  a  devil's 
miracle  to  hurry  things  along  when  the  railroad 
work  was  stopped.  But  that  wasn't  the  worst. 
As  you  know,  I  had  a  debt  to  pay  before  I  could 
say:  'Come,  little  girl,  let's  go  and  get  married.' 
So  I  became  a  stockholder  in  Cortwright's  power 
company,  knowing  perfectly  well  when  I  con- 
sented that  the  hundred  thousand  dollars'  worth 
of  stock  he  gave  me  was  a  bribe — the  price  of  my 
silence  and  non-interference  with  his  greedy 
schemes." 

292 


Love's  Crucible 

"But  you  didn't  mean  to  keep  it;  you  knew 
you  couldnt  keep  it!"  she  broke  in;  and  now  he 
did  not  need  to  look  to  know  that  her  Hps  were 
trembhng  piteously. 

"I  did  keep  it.  And  when  the  time  was  fully 
ripe  I  sold  it  back  to  Cortwright,  or,  rather, 
I  suppose,  sold  it  through  him  to  some  one  of 
his  wretched  gulls.  I  meant  to  pay  my  father's 
debt  with  the  money.  I  had  the  letter  written 
and  ready  to  mail.  Then  the  tempter  whispered 
that  there  was  no  hurry,  that  I  might  at  least 
keep  the  money  long  enough  to  make  it  earn 
something  for  myself.  Also,  it  struck  me  that 
this  same  devil  was  laughing  at  the  spectacle  of 
a  man  so  completely  lost  to  a  decent  sense  of 
the  fitness  of  things  as  to  be  planning  to  pay  an 
honor  debt  with  graft  money.  And  so  I  kept  it 
for  a  while." 

She  dropped  quickly  on  the  step  beside  him 
and  a  sympathetic  hand  crept  into  his. 

"You  kept  it  until  the  unhappy  day  when  you 
gave  it  to  my  father,  and  he — and  he  threw  it 
away."  She  was  crying  softly,  but  his  attempt 
to  comfort  her  was  almost  mechanical. 

"Don't  cry  about  the  money.  It  had  the 
devil's  thumb-prints  on  it,  and  he  merely  claimed 
his    own    and    got    it."     Then    he    went    on    as 

293 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

one  determined  to  leave  nothing  untold.  "Cort- 
wright  had  bought  me,  and  I  served  him  as  only 
a  man  in  my  position  could  serve  him.  I  be- 
came a  promoter,  a  'booster,'  with  the  others. 
There  have  been  times  when  a  word  from  me 
would  have  pricked  the  bubble.  I  haven't  said 
the  word;  I  am  not  saying  it  now.  If  I  should 
say  it  I'd  lose  at  a  single  stroke  all  that  I  have 
been  fighting  for.  And  I  am  not  a  good  loser, 
Amy." 

For  once  the  keen,  apprehending  perception 
failed. 

"I  don't  understand,"  she  said,  speaking  as  if 
she  were  groping  in  thick  darkness.  "I  mean  I 
don't  understand  the  motive  that  could " 

He  turned  to  her  in  dumb  astonishment. 

"I  thought  I  had  been  making  it  plain  as  I 
went  along.  There  has  been  but  the  one  motive 
— a  mad  passion  to  give,  give,  never  counting  the 
cost.  Love,  as  it  has  come  to  me,  seems  to  have 
neither  conscience  nor  any  scruples.  Nothing  is 
too  precious  to  be  dragged  to  the  sacrifice.  You 
wanted  something — you  needed  it — therefore  it 
must  be  purchased  for  you.  And  the  curious 
part  of  the  besetment  is  that  I  have  known  all 
along  that  I  was  killing  your  love  for  me.  If  it 
wasn't  quite  dead   before,  it  will  die  now — now 

294 


Love's  Crucible 

that  I  have  told  you  how  I  am  flinging  the  last 
vestiges  of  uprightness  and  honor  to  the  winds." 

"But  how?"  she  queried.  "You  haven't  told 
me. 

"You  said  a  few  minutes  ago  that  Mirapolis  is 
dying.  That  is  true;  and  it  is  dying  a  little  too 
soon  to  suit  the  purposes  of  the  Cortwright  gang. 
It  must  be  revived,  and  I  am  to  revive  it  by  per- 
suading the  department  to  rush  the  work  on  the 
dam.  You  would  say  that  this  would  only  hasten 
the  death  of  the  city.  But  the  plot  provides  for 
all  the  contingencies.  Mirapolis  needs  the  money 
that  would  be  spent  here  in  the  rushing  of  the 
government  work.  That  was  the  real  life-blood 
of  the  boom  at  first,  and  it  could  be  made  to  serve 
again.     Am  I  making  it  plain?" 

She  nodded  in  speechless  disheartenment,  and 
he  went  on: 

"With  the  dam  completed  before  Congress 
could  intervene,  Mirapolis  would,  of  course,  be 
quite  dead  and  ready  for  its  funeral.  But  if  the 
Cortwright  people  industriously  insist  that  the 
spending  of  another  million  or  two  of  govern- 
ment money  is  only  another  plum  for  the  city 
and  its  merchants  and  industries,  that,  notwith- 
standing the  renewed  activities,  the  work  will 
still   stop   short  of  completion  and  the  city  will 

295 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

be  saved  by  legislative  enactment,  the  innocent 
sheep  may  be  made  to  bleed  again  and  the 
wolves  will  escape." 

She  shuddered  and  drew  a  little  apart  from  him 
on  the  log  step. 

"But  your  part  in  this  horrible  plot,  Victor?" 
she  asked. 

"It  is  as  simple  as  it  is  despicable.  In  the 
first  place,  I  am  to  set  the  situation  before  the 
department  in  such  a  light  as  to  make  it  clearly 
a  matter  of  public  policy  to  take  advantage  of 
the  present  Mirapolitan  crisis  by  pushing  the 
work  vigorously  to  a  conclusion.  After  thus 
turning  on  the  spigot  of  plenty,  I  am  expected 
to  crowd  the  pay-rolls  and  at  the  same  time  to 
hold  back  on  the  actual  progress  of  the  work. 
That  is  all — except  that  I  am  to  keep  my  mouth 
shut." 

"But  you  can't,  you  cant!''''  she  cried. 
Then,  in  a  passionate  outburst:  "If  you  should 
do  such  a  thing  as  that,  it  wouldn't  kill  my  love 
— I  can't  say  that  any  more;  but  it  would  kill 
me — I  shouldn't  want  to  live!" 

He  looked  around  at  her  curiously,  as  if  he 
were  holding  her  at  arm's  length. 

"Shall  I  do  what  you  would  have  me  do,  Amy? 
Or  shall  I  do  what  is  best  for  you?"     The  oppos- 

296 


Love's  Crucible 

ing  queries  were  as  impersonal  as  the  arm's- 
length  gaze.  "Perhaps  I  might  be  able  to  patch 
up  the  ideals  and  stand  them  on  their  feet  again 
— and  you  would  pay  the  penalty  all  your  Hfe 
in  poverty  and  privation,  in  hopes  wrecked  and 
ruined,  and  I  with  my  hands  tied.  That  is  one 
horn  of  the  dilemma,  and  the  other  is  .  .  .  let 
me  tell  you.  Amy,  it  is  worse  than  your  worst  fears. 
They  will  strip  your  father  of  the  last  thing  he 
has  on  earth  and  bring  him  out  in  debt  to  them. 
There  is  one  chance,  and  only  one,  so  far  as  I 
can  see.  Let  me  go  on  as  I  have  begun  and  I 
can  pull  him  out." 

The  tears  had  burned  out  of  the  steadfast  eyes 
which  were  resting,  with  the  shining  soul  looking 
out  through  them,  upon  the  crimsoning  snow 
peaks  of  the  distant  Timanyonis. 

"How  little  you  know  the  real  love!"  she  said 
slowly.  "It  neither  weighs  nor  measures,  nor 
needs  to;  it  writes  its  own  law  in  the  heart,  and 
that  law  can  make  no  compromise  with  evil.  It 
has  but  one  requirement — the  best  good  of  the 
beloved.  If  the  way  to  that  end  lies  through 
sacrifice — if  it  asks  for  the  life  itself — so  let  it 
be.  If  you  knew  this,  Victor,  you  would  know 
that  I  would  gladly  lose  all — the  mine,  my  father's 
chance  of  his  reward  for  the  years  of  toil,  even 

297 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

my  brother's  better  chance  for  reformation — and 
count  myself  happy  in  having  found  a  love  that 
was  too  great  to  do  evil  that  good  might  come." 

He  got  up  stiffly  and  helped  her  to  her  feet  and 
together  they  stood  looking  down  upon  the  city 
of  the  plain,  lying  now  under  the  curved,  sunset 
shadow  cast  by  the  mighty,  inbending  sweep  of 
the  great  dam. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said  after  a  time.  "Once, 
as  I  told  you  a  few  weeks  ago,  the  best  there  was 
in  me  would  have  leaped  up  to  climb  the  heights 
with  you.  But  I've  gone  far  since  the  going  began. 
I  am  not  sure  that  I  could  find  my  way  back  if  I 
should  try.  Let's  go  down.  I  mustn't  keep  you 
out  on  the  mountain  after  dark.  I  haven't  hap- 
pened to  meet  her,  but  I  suppose  there  is  a  Mrs. 
Grundy,  even  in  Gomorrah." 

She  acquiesced  in  silence  and  they  made  the  de- 
scent of  the  steep  trail  and  walked  across  in  the 
growing  dusk  from  the  foot  of  Chigringo  to  the 
stuccoed  villa  in  the  suburb,  misers  of  speech, 
since  there  were  no  deeper  depths  to  which  the 
spoken  word  could  plunge.  But  at  the  villa 
steps  Brouillard  took  the  girl  in  his  arms  and 
kissed  her. 

"Put  me  out  of  your  mind  and  heart  if  you 
can,"  he  said  tenderly,  repeating  the  words  which 

298 


Love's  Crucible 

he  had  once  sent  across  the  distances  to  her  in 
another  moment  of  despair,  and  before  she  could 
answer  he  was  gone. 


Monsieur  Poudrecaulx  Bongras,  rotund,  smil- 
ing, and  roached  and  waxed  to  a  broad  burlesque 
of  Second-Empire  fierceness,  looked  in  vain  among 
his  dinner  guests  that  evening  for  the  chief  of  the 
Reclamation  Service,  and  Brouillard's  absence 
held  a  small  disappointment  for  the  Frenchman. 
Rumor,  the  rumor  which  was  never  quiet  and 
which  could  never  be  traced  conclusively  to  its 
source,  was  again  busy  with  exciting  hints  of  a 
new  era  of  prosperity  about  to  dawn,  and  Bongras 
had  hoped  to  drop  his  own  little  plummet  of  in- 
quiry into  the  Reclamation  Service  chief. 

The  chance  did  not  materialize.  The  lights  in 
a  certain  upper  office  in  the  Niquoia  Building  were 
still  turned  on  long  after  M.  Poudrecaulx  had 
given  up  the  hope  of  the  deep-sea  sounding  for 
that  night.  Some  time  after  the  lobby  crowd 
had  melted,  and  before  the  lower  avenue  had  be- 
gun to  order  small-hour  suppers  of  Bongras,  the 
two  high  windows  in  the  Niquoia  Building  went 
dark  and  a  few  minutes  later  the  man  who  had 
spent  half  the  night  tramping  the  floor  or  sitting 

299 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

with  his  head  in  his  hands  at  the  desk  in  the  upper 
room  came  out  of  the  street  archway  and  walked 
briskly  to  the  telegraph  office  across  the  plaza. 

"How  is  the  line  to-night,  Sanford — pretty 
clear?"  he  asked  of  the  night  manager,  killing 
time  while  the  sleepy  night  receiving  clerk  was 
making  his  third  attempt  to  count  the  words  in 
the  closely  written,  two-page  government  cipher. 

"Nothing  doing;  a  little  A.  P.  stuff  drizzling 
in  now  and  then,"  said  the  manager;  adding: 
"But  that's  like  the  poor — always  with  us." 

"All  right;  there  is  no  particular  rush  about 
this  matter  of  mine,  just  so  it  is  sure  to  be  in  the 
secretary's  hands  at  the  opening  of  business  in 
the  morning.  But  be  careful  that  it  goes  straight 
— you'd  better  have  it  checked  back  before  it  is 
put  on  the  through  wire  from  Denver." 

"Sure,  Mr.  Brouillard.  What  you  say  in  this 
little  old  shack  goes  as  it  lays.  We'll  look  out 
and  not  bull  your  message.     Good-night." 


300 


XIX 
The  Sunset  Gun 

NOTWITHSTANDING  the  preliminary  ru- 
mors which  Bongras  and  many  others  had 
sought  so  anxiously  to  verify,  the  Mirapolitan 
awakening  to  a  realization  that  once  miore  the 
tide  had  turned  to  bring  new  billows  of  pros- 
perity tumbling  into  the  valley  of  the  Niquoia 
came  with  a  sudden  and  triumphant  shock. 

The  first  of  the  quickening  waves  fell  upon 
the  government  reservation.  Between  sunrise  and 
nightfall,  on  a  day  when  the  cloud  of  depression 
had  grown  black  with  panic  threatenings,  the 
apathy  which  had  lately  characterized  the  work 
on  the  great  dam  disappeared  as  if  by  magic. 
The  city  found  its  bill-boards  posted  with  loud 
calls  for  labor;  the  idle  mixers  were  put  in  com- 
mission; the  quarries  and  crushers  began  to  thun- 
der again;  and  the  stagings  once  more  shook 
and  trembled  under  the  feet  of  a  busy  army  of 
puddlers. 

While  the  revival  was  as  yet  only  in  the  em- 
bryonic   period,    fresh    labor    began    to   come   in 

301 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

gangs  and  in  car  loads  and  presently  by  special 
trains.  Swarming  colonies  of  Greeks,  Italians,  and 
Bulgarians  were  dumped  upon  the  city  through 
the  gate  of  the  railroad  station,  and  once  more 
Chigringo  Avenue  at  night  became  a  cheerful 
Midway   answering  to  the  speech  of  all  nations. 

Change,  revivification,  reanimation  instantly 
became  the  new  order  of  the  day;  and  again  Mi- 
rapolis  flung  itself  joyously  into  the  fray,  reaping 
where  it  had  not  sown  and  sowing  only  where 
the  quickest  crop  could  be  gathered.  For  now 
the  dullest  of  the  reapers  saw  that  the  govern- 
ment work  was  really  the  MirapoHtan  breath  of 
life.  Neither  the  quickening  of  the  city's  indus- 
tries nor  the  restarting  of  the  gold  dredges  in 
the  Quadjenai  canals,  the  reopening  of  the  Real 
Estate  Exchange  nor  the  Buckskin  Company's 
sudden  resumption  of  the  profitless  prospecting 
on  Jack's  Mountain  served  to  obscure  the  prin- 
cipal fact — that  without  the  money  the  Reclama- 
tion Service  was  disbursing  the  new  prosperity 
structure  would  collapse  hke  a  house  of  cards. 

This  new  and  never-mentioned  conviction 
wrought  an  eager  change  in  men  and  in  methods. 
Credit  vanished  and  spot  cash  was  tacitly  ac- 
knowledged to  be  the  only  way  to  do  business 
in  a  live  community.     Fortunes   changed  hands 

302 


The  Sunset  Gun 

swiftly,  as  before,  but  now  there  was  little  bar- 
gaining and,  with  hot  haste  for  the  foreword, 
little  time  for  it.  To  the  Western  motto  of 
"Go  to  it  and  get  the  money"  was  added:  "And 
don't  come  back  without  it."  It  was  said  with  a 
laugh,  but  behind  the  laugh  there  was  a  menace. 

Among  the  individual  transformations  wrought 
by  the  new  conditions,  the  young  chief  of  the 
Reclamation  Service  afforded  the  most  striking 
example.  From  the  morning  when  he  had  sum- 
marily cancelled  the  lease  for  the  offices  in  the 
Niquoia  Building  and  had  returned  his  head- 
quarters to  the  old  log  buildings  on  the  gov- 
ernment reservation  and  thence  had  issued  his 
first  series  of  orders  for  the  resumption  of  full- 
force  work  on  the  dam  and  canals,  those  who  had 
known  him  best  discovered  that  they  had  not 
known  him  at  all.  Even  to  Grislow  and  the  men 
of  his  staff  he  was  curt,  crisply  mandatory,  al- 
most brutal.  For  one  and  all  there  was  rarely 
anything  beyond  the  shot-like  sentence:  "Drive 
it,  men;  drive  it;  that's  what  you're  here  for — 
drive  it!" 

The  time  he  took  to  eat  his  hurried  meals  at 
Bongras's  could  be  measured  in  minutes,  and 
what  hours  he  gave  to  sleep  no  man  knew,  since 
he  was  the  last  to  leave  the  headquarters  at  night 

303 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

and  the  first  on  the  work  in  the  morning.  Twice, 
after  the  renewed  activities  on  the  great  wall  had 
become  a  well-ordered  race  against  time,  and  the 
concrete  was  pouring  into  the  high  forms  in  steady 
streams  from  the  ranked  batteries  of  mixers,  Mr. 
Cortwright  had  sent  for  Brouillard,  and  on  each 
occasion  the  messenger  had  gone  back  with  the 
brief  word:  "Too  busy  during  working  hours." 
And  when  a  third  messenger  came  to  inquire  what 
Mr.  Brouillard's  working  hours  were,  the  equallj^ 
blunt  answer  returned  was:   "All  the  time." 

In  the  face  of  such  discouragements  Mr.  Cort- 
wright was  constrained  to  pocket  his  dignity  as 
mayor,  as  the  potentate  of  the  exchanges,  and 
as  the  unquestionable  master  of  the  surly  young 
industry  captain  who  refused  to  come  when  he 
was  called,  and  to  go  in  person.  Choosing  the 
evening  hour  when  he  had  been  assured  that  he 
was  likely  to  find  Brouillard  alone  and  at  work, 
he  crossed  the  boundaries  of  the  sacred  reserva- 
tion and  made  his  way  to  the  door  of  the  log- 
built  mapping  room. 

"I  came  around  to  see  what  is  eating  you  these 
days,"  was  the  pudgy  tyrant's  greeting  for  the 
young  man  sitting  under  the  shaded  desk  lamp. 
"Why  don't  you  drop  in  once  in  a  while  and  give 
me  the  run  of  things?" 

.^04 


The  Sunset  Gun 

"I  gave  your  clerk  the  reason,"  said  Brouillard 
laconically.     "I'm  too  busy." 

"The  devil  you  are!"  snapped  the  great  man, 
finding  the  only  arm  chair  in  the  room  and  drop- 
ping heavily  into  it.     "Since  when?" 

"Since  the  first  time  you  sent  for  me — and 
before." 

Mr.  Cortwright  recovered  his  working  genial- 
ity only  with  a  palpable  effort. 

"See  here,  Brouillard,  you  know  you  never 
make  any  money  by  being  short  with  me.  Let's 
drop  it  and  get  down  to  business.  What  I  wanted 
to  say  is  that  you  are  overdoing  it;  you  are  put- 
ting on  too  much  steam.  You've  brought  the 
boom,  all  right,  but  at  the  pace  you're  setting 
it  won't  last  long  enough.  Are  you  catching 
onr 

"I'm  listening,"  was  the  non-committal  reply. 

"Well,  enough's  enough,  and  too  much  of  a 
good  thing  scalds  the  hog  before  you're  ready  to 
dress  it  and  cut  it  up.  It's  all  right  for  you  to 
run  men  in  here  by  the  train  load  and  scatter  'em 
out  over  your  scaffolding — the  more  the  merrier, 
and  it's  good  for  the  town — but  you  needn't 
sweat  the  last  shovelful  of  hurry  out  of  them  the 
way  you're  doing.  It  won't  do  to  get  your  job 
finished  too  soon." 

305 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"Before  Congress  convenes,  you  mean?"  sug- 
gested Brouillard. 

"That's  just  what  I  mean.  String  it  out. 
Make  it  last." 

Brouillard  sat  back  in  his  pivot  chair  and  be- 
gan to  play  with  the  paper-knife. 

"And  if  I  don't  choose  to  'string  it  out' — if  I 
even  confess  that  I  am  straining  every  nerve  to 
do  this  thing  that  you  don't  want  me  to  do — 
what  then,  Mr.  Cortwright?" 

The  quiet  retort  jolted  the  stocky  man  in  the 
arm  chair  as  if  it  had  been  a  blow.  But  he  re- 
covered quickly. 

"I've  been  looking  for  that,"  he  said  with 
a  nervous  twinkling  of  the  little  gray  eyes. 
"You've  no  business  being  out  of  business, 
Brouillard.  If  you'd  quit  puddling  sand  and 
cement  and  little  rocks  together  and  strike  your 
gait  right  in  ten  years  you'd  be  the  richest  man 
this  side  of  the  mountains.  I'll  be  open-handed 
with  you:  this  time  you've  got  us  where  we  can't 
wiggle.  We've  got  to  have  more  time.  How 
much  is  it  going  to  cost  us?" 

Brouillard  shook  his  head  slowly. 

"Odd  as  it  may  seem  to  you,  I'm  out  of  your 
market  this  time,  Mr.  Cortwright — quite  out  of 
it." 

306 


The  Sunset  Gun 

*'0h,  no,  you're  not.  You've  got  property  to 
sell — a  good  bit  of  it.  We  can  turn  it  for  you  at 
a  figure  that  will " 

"No;  you  are  mistaken,"  was  the  quick  reply. 
"I  have  no  property  in  Mirapolis.  I  am  merely 
a  squatter  on  government  land,  like  every  one 
else  in  the  Niquoia  valley." 

"For  Heaven's  sake!"  the  promoter  burst  out. 
"What's  got  into  you?  Don't  you  go  around 
trying  to  stand  that  corpse  on  its  feet;  it's  a 
dead  one,  I  tell  you!  The  Coronida  titles  are  all 
right!" 

"There  are  no  Coronida  titles.  You  have 
known  it  all  along,  and  I  know  it — now.  I  have 
it  straight  from  the  bureau  of  land  statistics,  in 
a  letter  from  a  man  who  knows.  The  nearest 
boundary  of  the  old  Spanish  grant  is  Latigo  Peak, 
ten  miles  south  of  Chigringo.  The  department 
knows  this  and  is  prepared  to  prove  it.  And  in 
the  very  beginning  you  and  your  associates  were 
warned  that  you  could  not  acquire  homestead  or 
other  rights  in  the  Niquoia." 

"Let  it  go!"  snapped  the  gray-eyed  king  of  the 
pack.  "We've  got  to  get  out  alive  and  we're 
going  to  get  out  alive.     What's  your  price?" 

"I  have  answered  that  question  once,  but  I'll 
make   it    a   little  plainer  if  you  wish.     It  is  be- 

307 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

yond  your  reach;  if  you  should  turn  your  money- 
coining  soul  into  cash  you  couldn't  pay  it  this 
time,  Mr.  Cortwright." 

''That's  gufF — boy-talk — play-ranting!  You 
want  something — is  it  that  damned  Massingale 
business  again?  I  don't  own  the  railroad,  but  if 
you  think  I  do,  I'll  sign  anything  you  want  to  write 
to  the  traffic  people.  Let  Massingale  sell  his  ore 
and  get  the  money  for  it.  He'll  go  gamble  it  as 
he  did  yours." 

Brouillard  looked  up  under  the  shaded  electric 
globe  and  his  handsome  face  wrinkled  in  a  sour 
smile, 

"You  are  ready  to  let  go,  are  you?"  he  said. 
**You  are  too  late.  Mr.  Ford  returned  from  Eu- 
rope a  week  ago,  and  I  have  a  wire  saying  that 
to-night's  through  freight  from  Brewster  is  chiefly 
made  up  of  empty  ore-cars  for  the  'Little  Susan.'" 

The  sandy-gray  eyes  blinked  at  this,  but  Mr. 
Cortwright  was  of  those  who  die  hard. 

"What  I  said  still  holds  good.  Massingale  or 
his  son,  or  both  of  them,  will  gamble  the  money. 
And  if  they  don't,  we've  got  'em  tied  up  in  a  hard 
knot  on  the  stock  proposition." 

"I  was  coming  to  that,"  said  Brouillard  qui- 
etly. "For  a  long  time  you  have  been  telling 
me  what  I  should  do  and  I  have  done  it.     Now 

308 


The  Sunset  Gun 

I'll  take  my  turn.  You  must  notify  your  asso- 
ciates that  the  'Little  Susan'  deal  is  off.  There 
will  be  a  called  meeting  of  the  directors  here 
in  this  room  to-morrow  evening  at  eight  o'clock, 
and " 

"Who  calls  it?"  interrupted  the  tyrant. 

"The  president." 

"President  nothing!"  was  the  snorted  com- 
ment. "An  old,  drunken  gambler  who  hasn't  got 
sense  enough  to  go  in  when  it  rains!  Say,  Brouil- 
lard,  I'll  cut  that  pie  so  there'll  be  enough 
to  go  around  the  table.  Just  leave  Massingale 
out  of  it  and  make  up  your  mind  that  you're 
going  to  sit  in  with  us.  We've  bought  the  mine 
and  paid  for  it.  I've  got  the  stock  put  away 
where  it's  safe.  Massingale  can't  touch  a  share 
of  it,  or  vote  it,  either." 

Brouillard  shook  his  head. 

"You  are  stubbornly  hard  to  convince,  Mr. 
Cortwright,  but  I'll  try  one  more  time.  You  will 
come  here  to-morrow  evening,  with  your  confeder- 
ates in  the  deal,  prepared  to  take  the  money  you 
have  actually  spent  in  betterments  and  prepared 
to  release  the  stock.  If  you  fail  to  do  so  you  will 
get  nothing.     Is  that  explicit  enough.'"' 

"You're  crazy!"  shouted  the  promoter.  "You 
talk  as  if  there  wasn't  any  law  in  this  country!" 

309 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"There  isn't — for  such  men  as  you;  you  and 
your  kind  put  yourselves  above  the  law.  But 
that  is  neither  here  nor  there.  You  don't  want 
to  go  into  court  with  this  conspiracy  which  you 
have  cooked  up  to  beat  David  Massingale  out  of 
his  property.  It's  the  last  thing  on  earth  you 
want  to  do.  So  you'd  better  do  the  other  thing 
— while  you  can." 

Mr.  Cortwright  sat  back  in  his  chair,  and  once 
more  Brouillard  saw  in  the  sandy-gray  eyes  the 
look  which  had  been  in  the  son's  eyes  when  the 
derelict  fought  for  freedom  to  finish  killing  Ste- 
phen Massingale. 

"It's  a  pretty  dangerous  thing  to  try  to  hold  a 
man  up  unless  you've  got  the  drop  on  him,  Brouil- 
lard," he  said  significantly.  "I've  got  you  cov- 
ered from  my  pocket;  I've  had  you  covered  that 
way  ever  since  you  began  to  buck  and  rear  on 
me  a  couple  of  months  ago.  One  little  wire  word 
to  Washington  fixes  you  for  good  and  all.  If  I 
say  the  word,  you'll  stay  on  your  job  just  as  long 
as  it  will  take  another  man  to  get  here  to  super- 
sede you." 

Brouillard  laughed. 

"The  pocket  drop  is  never  very  safe,  Mr. 
Cortwright.  You  are  likely  to  lose  too  much 
time   feeling   for   the   proper   range.     Then,    too, 

310 


The  Sunset  Gun 

you  can  never  be  sure  that  you  won't  miss. 
Also,  your  assumption  that  I'm  taking  an  un- 
armed man's  chance  is  wrong.  I  can  kill  you 
before  you  can  pull  the  trigger  of  the  pocket  gun 
you  speak  of — kill  you  so  dead  that  you  won't 
need  anything  but  a  coroner's  jury  and  a  coffin. 
How  long  would  it  take  you  to  get  action  in  the 
Washington  matter,  do  you  think?" 

"I've  told  you;  you'd  have  just  about  a  week 
longer  to  live,  at  the  furthest." 

"I  can  better  that,"  was  the  cool  reply.  "I 
have  asked  you  to  do  a  certain  thing  to-morrow 
night.  If  you  don't  do  it,  the  Spot-Light  will 
print,  on  the  following  morning,  that  letter  I 
spoke  of — the  letter  from  my  friend  in  the  bureau 
of  land  statistics.  When  that  letter  is  printed 
everybody  in  Mirapolis  will  know  that  you  and 
your  accomplices  are  plain  swindlers,  amenable 
to  the  criminal  law,  and  from  that  moment  there 
will  never  be  another  real-estate  transfer  in  the 
Niquoia  valley." 

The  promoter  rose  slowly  out  of  his  chair  and 
stood  leaning  heavily  with  his  fat  hands,  palms 
downward,  on  the  flat-topped  desk.  His  cheeks 
were  puffed  out  and  the  bitten  mustaches  bristled 
like  the  whiskers  of  a  gray  old  leader  of  the 
timber-wolves. 

311 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"Brouillard,"  he  grated  huskily,  "does  this 
mean  that  you're  breaking  with  us,  once  for 
all?" 

"It  means  more  than  that;  it  means  that  I 
have  reached  a  point  at  which  I  am  ashamed  to 
admit  that  there  was  ever  anything  to  break." 

"Then  listen:  you've  helped  this  thing  along 
as  much  as,  or  more  than,  anybody  else  in  this 
town;  and  there  are  men  right  here  in  Mirapolis — 
plenty  of  'em — who  will  kill  you  like  a  rat  in  a 
hole  if  you  go  back  on  them  as  you  are  threat- 
ening to.     Don't  you  know  that?" 

The  younger  man  was  balancing  the  paper- 
cutter  across  his  finger. 

"That  is  the  least  of  my  worries,"  he  answered, 
speaking  slowly.  "I  am  all  sorts  of  a  moral  cow- 
ard, I  suppose;  I've  proved  that  often  enough 
in  the  past  few  months,  God  knows.  But  I'm 
not  the  other  kind,  Mr.  Cortwright." 

"Then  I'll  take  a  hand!"  snarled  the  tyrant  at 
bay.  "I'll  spend  a  million  dollars,  if  I  have  to, 
blacklisting  you  from  one  end  of  this  country  to 
the  other!  I'll  fix  it  so  you'll  never  build  any- 
thing bigger  than  a  hog-pen  again  as  long  as  you 
live!  I'll  publish  your  record  wherever  there  is 
a  newspaper  to  print  it!"  He  pounded  on  the 
desk  with  his  fist — "I'll  do  it — money  can  do  it! 

312 


The  Sunset  Gun 

More  than  that,  you'll  never  get  a  smell  of  that 
Chigringo  mine — 3^ou  nor  Dave  Massingale!" 

Brouillard  tossed  the  paper-knife  into  a  half- 
opened  drawer  and  squared  himself  at  the  blot- 
ting-pad. 

"That  is  your  challenge,  is  it?"  he  said  curtly. 
"So  be  it.  Start  your  machinery.  You  will 
doubtless  get  me,  not  because  you  have  money, 
but  because  for  a  time  I  was  weak  enough  and 
wicked  enough  to  climb  down  and  stand  on  your 
level.  But  if  you  don't  hurry,  Mr.  Cortwright, 
I'll  get  you  first.  Are  you  going?  One  thing 
more — and  it's  a  kindness;  get  your  son  out  of 
town  befoi'e  this  Massingale  matter  comes  up 
for  adjustment.     It  will  be  safer." 

"Is  that  all  you  have  to  say?" 

"Pretty  nearly  all,  except  to  tell  you  that  your 
time  is  growing  short,  and  you  and  those  who  are 
in  with  you  had  better  begin  to  set  your  houses 
in  order.  If  you'll  come  over  here  at  eight  o'clock 
to-morrow  night  prepared  to  do  the  square  thing 
by  David  Massingale,  I'll  withhold  the  publica- 
tion of  that  letter  which  will  stamp  you  and  your 
associates  as  criminals  before  the  law;  but  that 
is  the  only  concession  I  shall  make." 

"You've  got  to  make  at  least  one  more!" 
stormed  the  outgoing  magnate.     "You  don't  have 

313 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

to  set  any  dates  or  anything  of  that  kind  for 
your  damned  drowning  act!" 

"In  justice  to  a  good  many  people  who  are 
measurably  innocent,  I  shall  have  to  do  that 
very  thing,"  returned  the  engineer  firmly.  "The 
notice  will  appear  in  to-morrow's  Spot-Light." 

It  was  the  final  straw  in  the  stocky  promoter's 
crushing  wrath  burden.  His  fat  face  turned  pur- 
ple, and  for  a  second  or  two  he  clawed  the  air, 
gasping  for  breath.  Brouillard  sat  back  in  his 
chair,  waiting  for  the  volcanic  upheaval.  But  it 
did  not  come.  When  he  had  regained  a  measure 
of  self-control,  Mr.  Cortwright  turned  slowly  and 
went  out  without  a  word,  stumbling  over  the 
threshold  and  slamming  the  door  heavily  as  he 
disappeared. 

For  a  time  after  the  promoter's  wordless  de- 
parture Brouillard  sat  at  his  desk  writing  steadily. 
When  the  last  of  the  memorandum  sheets  was 
filled  he  found  his  hat  and  street  coat  and  left 
the  office.  Ten  minutes  later  he  had  penetrated 
to  the  dusty  den  on  the  second  floor  of  the  Spot- 
Light  office  where  Harlan  was  grinding  copy  for 
his  paper.  Brouillard  took  a  chair  at  the  desk 
end  and  laid  the  sheets  of  pencilled  government 
paper  under  the  editor's  eyes. 

Harlan's  lean,   fine-fined   face  was   a  study  in 

314 


The  Sunset  Gun 

changing  emotions  as  he  read.  But  at  the  end 
there  was  an  aggrieved  look  in  his  eyes,  mirroring 
the  poignant  regret  of  a  newsman  who  has  found 
a  priceless  story  which  he  dares  not  use. 

"It's  ripping,"  he  sighed,  "the  biggest  piece  of 
fireworks  a  poor  devil  of  a  newspaper  man  ever 
had  a  chance  to  touch  off.  But,  of  course,  I 
can't  print  it." 

"Why  'of  course'?" 

"For  the  same  reason  that  a  sane  man  doesn't 
peek  down  the  muzzle  of  a  loaded  gun  when  he  is 
monkeying  with  the  trigger.  I  want  to  live  a 
little  while  longer." 

Brouillard  looked  reheved. 

"I  thought,  perhaps,  it  was  on  account  of  your 
investments,"  he  said. 

"Not  at  the  present  writing,"  amended  Harlan 
with  a  grin.  "I  got  a  case  of  cold  feet  when  we 
had  that  Httle  let-up  a  while  back,  and  when  the 
market  opened  I  cleaned  up  and  sent  the  sure- 
enough  httle  round  dollars  home  to  Ohio." 

"And  still  you  won't  print  this?" 

"I'd  like  to;  you  don't  know  how  much  I'd 
like  to.  But  they'd  hang  me  and  sack  the  shop. 
I  shouldn't  blame  'em.  If  what  you  have  said 
here  ever  gets  into  cold  type,  it's  good-by  Mirap- 
olis.     Why,  Brouillard,  the  whole  United  States 

315 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

would  rise  up  and  tell  us  to  get  off  the  map. 
You've  made  us  look  like  thirty  cents  trying  to 
block  the  wheels  of  a  million  dollars — and  that  is 
about  the  real  size  of  it,  I  guess." 

"Then  it  is  your  opinion  that  if  this  were 
printed  it  would  do  the  business?" 

"There  isn't  the  slightest  doubt  about  it." 

"Thank  you,  Harlan,  that  is  what  I  wanted  to 
find  out — if  I  had  made  it  strong  enough.  It'll 
be  printed.  I'll  put  it  on  the  wires  to  the  Asso- 
ciated Press.  I  was  merely  giving  you  the  first 
hack  at  it." 

"Gee — gosh!  hold  on  a  minute!"  exclaimed  the 
newsman,  jumping  up  and  snapping  his  fingers. 
"If  I  weren't  such  a  dod-gasted  coward!  Let 
me  run  in  a  few  'It  is  alleged's',  and  I'll  chance 
it." 

"No;  it  goes  as  it  lies.  There  are  no  allega- 
tions. It  is  merely  a  string  of  cold  facts,  as  you 
very  well  know.  Print  it  if  you  like,  and  I'll  see 
to  it  that  they  don't  hang  you  or  loot  the  office. 
I  have  two  hundred  of  the  safest  men  on  my 
force  under  arms  to-night,  and  we'll  take  care  of 
you.  I'm  in  this  thing  for  blood,  Harlan,  and 
when  I  get  through,  this  little  obstruction  in  the 
way  of  progress  that  Cortwright  and  his  crowd 
planned,  and  that  you  and  I  and  a  lot  of  other 

316 


The  Sunset  Gun 

fools  and  knaves  helped  to  build,  will  be  cooling 
itself  under  two  hundred  feet  of  water." 

"Good  Lord!"  said  the  editor,  still  unable  to 
compass  the  barbaric  suddenness  of  it.  Then  he 
ran  his  eye  over  the  scratch  sheets  again.  "Does 
this  formal  notice  that  the  waste-gates  will  be 
closed  three  weeks  from  to-morrow  go  as  it 
stands.''"  he  inquired. 

"It  does.  I  have  the  department's  authority. 
You  know  as  well  as  I  do  that  unless  a  fixed  day 
is  set  there  will  be  no  move  made.  We  are  all 
trespassers  here,  and  we've  been  warned  off. 
That's  all  there  is  to  it.  And  if  we  can't  get  our 
little  belongings  up  into  the  hills  in  three  weeks 
it's  our  loss;  we  had  no  business  bringing  them 
here." 

The  editor  looked  up  with  the  light  of  a  new 
discovery  in  his  eyes.  "You  say  Sve'  and  'our.' 
That  reminds  me;  Garner  told  me  no  longer  ago 
than  this  afternoon  that  you  are  on  record  for 
something  like  a  hundred  thousand  dollars'  worth 
of  choice  Mirapolis  front  feet.     How  about  that .'' " 

Brouillard's  smile  was  quite  heart-whole. 

"I've  kept  my  salary  in  a  separate  pocket, 
Harlan.  Besides  that — well,  I  came  here  with 
nothing  and  I  shall  go  away  with  nothing.  The 
rest  of  it  was  all  stage  money." 

317 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"Say — by  hen!"  ejaculated  the  owner  of  the 
Spot-Light.  Then,  smiting  the  desk:  "You  ought 
to  let  me  print  that.  I'd  run  it  in  red  head-lines 
across  the  top  of  the  front  page.  But,  of  course, 
you  won't.  .  .  .  Well,  here  goes  for  the  fireworks 
and  a  chance  of  a  soaped  rope."  And  he  pushed 
the  bell  button  for  the  copy  boy. 

Late  as  it  was  when  he  left  the  Spot-Light  office, 
Brouillard  waited  on  the  corner  for  a  Quadjenai 
car,  and,  catching  one,  he  was  presently  whisked 
out  to  the  ornate  villa  in  the  eastern  suburb. 
There  was  a  light  in  the  hall  and  another  in  a 
room  to  the  rear,  and  it  was  Amy  who  answered 
his  touch  of  the  bell-push. 

"No,  I  can't  stay,"  he  said,  when  she  asked 
him  in.  "But  I  had  to  come,  if  it  was  only  for  a 
minute.  The  deed  is  done.  I've  had  my  next- 
to-the-last  round-up  with  Mr.  J.  Wesley  Cort- 
wright,  and  to-morrow's  Spot-Light  will  fire  the 
sunset  gun  for  Mirapolis.     Is  your  father  here?" 

"No.  He  and  Stevie  are  up  at  the  mine.  I 
am  looking  for  them  on  every  car." 

"When  they  come,  tell  your  father  it's  time 
to  hike.     Are  you  all  packed?" 

She  nodded.     "Everything  is  ready." 

"All  right.  Three  of  my  teams  will  be  here  by 
midnight,  at  the  latest.     The  drivers  and  helpers 

318 


The  Sunset  Gun 

will  be  good  men  and  you  can  trust  them.  Don't 
let  anything  interfere  with  your  getting  safely 
up  to  the  mountain  to-night.  There'll  be  warm 
times  in  Gomorrah  from  this  on  and  I  want  a 
free  hand — which  I  shouldn't  have  with  you  here." 

"Oh,  I'm  glad,  glad! — and  I'm  just  as  scared 
as  I  can  be!"  she  gasped  with  true  feminine  in- 
consistency. "They  will  single  you  out  first; 
what  if  I  am  sending  you  to  your  death,  Victor! 
Oh,  please  don't  go  and  break  my  heart  the  other 
way  across  by  getting  killed!" 

He  drew  a  deep  breath  and  laughed. 

"You  don't  know  how  good  it  sounds  to  hear 
you  say  that — and  say  it  in  that  way.  I  sha'n't 
be  reckless.  But  I'm  going  to  bring  J.  Wesley  and 
his  crowd  to  book — they've  got  to  go,  and  they've 
got  to  turn  the  'Little  Susan'  loose." 

"They  will  never  do  that,"  she  said  sadly. 

"I'll  make  them;  you  wait  and  see." 

She  looked  up  with  the  violet  eyes  kindling. 

"I  told  you  once  that  you  could  do  anything 
you  wanted  to — if  you  only  wanted  to  hard  enough. 
I  believed  it  then;  I  believe  it  now." 

"No,"  he  denied  with  a  smile  that  was  half 
sorrowful,  "I  can't  make  two  hills  without  a  val- 
ley between  them.  I've  chased  down  the  back 
track  like  a  little  man, — for  love's  sake.  Amy, — 

319 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

and  I've  burned  all  the  bridges  behind  me  as  I 
ran;  namely,  the  sham  deeds  to  the  pieces  of  re- 
servoir bottom  I'd  been  buying.  But  when  it  is 
all  over  I  shall  be  just  where  I  was  when  we  be- 
gan— exactly  one  hundred  thousand  dollars  short 
of  being  able  to  say:  'Come,  girl,  let's  go  and  get 
married. 

"But  father  owes  you  a  hundred  thousand 
dollars,"  she  said  quickly. 

"Not  in  a  hundred  thousand  years,  0  most  in- 
consistent of  women!  Didn't  we  agree  that  that 
money  was  poisoned?  It  was  the  purchase  price 
of  an  immortal  soul,  and  I  wouldn't  touch  it  with 
a  pair  of  tongs.  That  is  why  your  father  couldn't 
use  it;  it  belonged  to  the  devil  and  the  devil 
wanted  it  back." 

"Father  won't  take  that  view  of  it,"  she  pro- 
tested. 

"Then  you'll  have  to  help  me  to  bully  him, 
that's  all.  But  I  must  go  and  relieve  Grizzy,  who 
is  doing  guard  duty  at  the  mixers.  .  .  .  Tell  your 
father — no,  that  isn't  what  I  meant  to  say,  it's 
this — "  and  his  arms  went  suddenly  across  the 
hundred-thousand-dollar  chasm. 

A  little  deeper  in  the  night,  when  he  was  tramp- 
ing back  through  the  sleeping  town   and   up  to 

320 


The  Sunset  Gun 

the  mixers  on  the  high  bench  of  Jack's  Mountain, 
Brouillard  knew  well  enough  that  he  was  walking 
over  a  thin-crusted  crater  of  volcanic  possibilities. 
But  to  a  man  in  the  seventh  heaven  of  love 
acknowledged  without  shame,  and  equally  with- 
out shame  returned, — nay,  with  the  first  passion- 
ate kiss  of  the  love  still  tingling  on  his  lips, — 
volcanic  possibilities,  or  even  the  volcanoes  them- 
selves, figure  lightly,  indeed. 


321 


XX 

The  Terror 

IN  the  Yellowstone  National  Park  there  is  an 
apparently  bottomless  pit  which  can  be  in- 
stantly transformed  into  a  spouting,  roaring  Vesu- 
vius of  boiling  water  by  the  simple  expedient  of 
dropping  a  bar  of  soap  into  it. 

The  Spot-Light  went  to  press  at  three  o'clock. 
By  the  earliest  graying  of  dawn,  and  long  before 
the  sun  had  shown  itself  above  the  eastern  Timan- 
yonis,  Brouillard's  bar  of  soap  was  melting  and 
the  Mirapolitan  under-depths  were  beginning  to 
heave.  Like  wild-lire,  the  news  spread  from  lip 
to  lip  and  street  to  street,  and  by  sunrise  the 
geyser  was  retching  and  vomiting,  belching  debris 
of  cries  and  maledictions,  and  pouring  excited  and 
riotous  crowds  into  Chigringo  Avenue, 

Most  naturally,  the  Spot-Light  office  was  the 
first  point  of  attack,  and  Harlan  suffered  loss, 
though  it  was  inconsiderable.  At  the  battering 
down  of  the  doors  the  angry  mob  found  itself 
confronting  the  young  Reclamation  Service  chief 

322 


The  Terror 

and  four  members  of  his  staff,  all  armed.  Brouil- 
lard  spoke  briefly  and  to  the  pomt. 

"I  am  the  man  who  wrote  that  article  you've 
been  readmg,  and  Mr.  Harlan  prmted  it  as  a 
matter  of  news.  If  you  have  anything  to  sa}'  to 
me  you  know  where  to  find  me.  Now,  move  on 
and  let  Mr.  Harlan's  property  alone  or  somebody 
W'ill  get  hurt." 

Nobody  stayed  to  press  the  argument  at  the 
moment.  An  early-morning  mob  is  proverbially 
incoherent  and  incohesive;  and,  besides,  loaded 
Winchesters  in  the  hands  of  five  determined  men 
are  apt  to  have  an  eloquence  which  is  more  or 
less  convincing. 

But  with  the  opening  of  business  the  geyser 
spouted  again.  The  exchanges  were  mobbed  by 
eager  sellers,  each  frenzied  struggler  hoping  against 
hope  that  he  might  find  some  one  simple  enough 
to  buy.  At  ten  o'clock  the  bank  closed — "Tempo- 
rarily," the  placard  notice  said.  But  there  w^ere 
plenty  to  believe  that  it  would  never  open  again. 

By  noon  the  trading  panic  had  exhausted  it- 
self a  little,  though  the  lobby  and  cafe  of  the 
Metropole  were  crowded,  and  anxious  groups 
quickly  formed  around  any  nucleus  of  rumor  or 
gossip  in  the  streets. 

Between  one  and  two  o'clock,  w^hile  Brouillard, 

323 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

Leshington,  and  Anson  were  hastily  eating  a 
luncheon  sent  over  to  the  mapping  room  from 
Bongras's,  Harlan  drifted  in. 

"Spill  your  news,"  commanded  Leshington 
gruffly.     "What's  doing,  and  who's  doing  it?" 

"Nobody,  and  nothing  much,"  said  Harlan, 
answering  the  two  queries  as  one.  "The  town  is 
falling  apart  like  a  bunch  of  sand  and  the  get- 
away has  set  in.  Two  full  trains  went  east  this 
forenoon,  and  two  more  are  scheduled  for  this 
afternoon  if  the  railroad  people  can  get  the  cars 
here." 

"'Good-by,  little  girl,  good-by,'"  hummed  Gris- 
low,  entering  in  time  to  hear  the  report  of  the 
flight. 

But  Leshington  was  shaking  his  big  head  mood- 
ily. "Laugh  about  it  if  you  can,  but  it's  no 
joke,"  he  growled.  "When  the  froth  is  blown 
away  and  the  bubbles  quit  rising,  there  are  going 
to  be  some  mighty  bitter  setthngs  left  in  the  bot- 
tom of  the  stein." 

"You're  right,  Leshington,"  said  Harlan, 
gravely.  "What  we're  seeing  now  is  only  the 
shocked  surprise  of  it — as  when  a  man  says 
'Ouch!'  before  he  realizes  that  the  dog  which  has 
bitten  him  has  a  well-developed  case  of  rabies. 
We'll  come  to  the  hydrophobic  stage  later  on." 

324 


The  Terror 

By  nightfall  of  this  first  day  the  editor's  omi- 
nous prophecy  seemed  about  to  reach  its  fulfil- 
ment. The  Avenue  was  crowded  again  and  the 
din  and  clamor  was  the  roar  of  a  mob  infuriated. 
Brouillard  and  Leshington  had  just  returned  from 
posting  a  company  of  the  workmen  guard  at  the 
mixers  and  crushers,  when  Grislow,  who  had  been 
scouting  on  the  Avenue,  came  in. 

"Harmless  enough,  yet,"  he  reported.  "It's 
only  some  more  of  the  get-away  that  Harlan  was 
describing.  Just  the  same,  it's  something  awful. 
People  are  fairly  climbing  over  one  another  on 
the  road  up  the  hill  to  the  station — with  no  pos- 
sible hope  of  getting  a  train  before  some  time  to- 
morrow. Teamsters  are  charging  twenty-five 
dollars  a  load  for  moving  stuff'  that  won't  find 
cars  for  a  week,  and  they're  scarce  at  the 
price." 

Leshington,  who  was  not  normally  a  profane 
man,  opened  his  mouth  and  said  things. 

"If  the  Cortwright  crowd  had  one  man  in  it 
with  a  single  idea  beyond  saving  his  own  miser- 
able stake!"  he  stormed.  "What  are  the  spell- 
binders doing,  Grizzy?" 

The  hydrographer  grinned.  "Cortwright  and 
a  chosen  few  left  this  afternoon,  hotfoot,  for 
Washington,  to  get  the  government  to  interfere. 

325 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

That's  the  story  they'd  like  to  have  the  people 
believe.  But  the  fact  is,  they  ran  away  from 
Judge  Lynch." 

"Yes;  I  think  I  see  'em  coming  back — not!" 
snorted  the  first  assistant.  Then  to  Brouillard: 
"That  puts  it  up  to  us  from  this  out.  Is  there 
anything  we  can  do?" 

Brouillard  shook  his  head.  "I  don't  want 
to  stop  the  retreat.  I've  heard  from  President 
Ford.  The  entire  Western  Division  will  hustle 
the  business  of  emptying  the  town,  and  the 
quicker  it  is  done  the  sooner  it  will  be  over." 

For  a  tumultuous  week  the  flight  from  the 
doomed  city  went  on,  and  the  overtaxed  single- 
track  railroad  wrought  miracles  of  transportation. 
Not  until  the  second  week  did  the  idea  of  material 
salvage  take  root,  but,  once  started,  it  grew  like 
Jonah's  gourd.  Hundreds  of  wrecking  crews  were 
formed.  Plants  were  emptied,  and  the  machinery 
was  shipped  as  it  stood.  Houses  and  business 
blocks  were  gutted  of  everything  that  could  be 
carried  off  and  crowded  into  freight-cars.  And, 
most  wonderful  of  all,  cars  were  found  and  fur- 
nished almost  as  fast  as  they  could  be  loaded. 

But  the  second  week  was  not  without  incidents 
of  another  sort.  Twice  Brouillard  had  been  shot 
at — once    in    the    dark    as    he   was    entering    the 

326 


The  Terror 

mapping  room,  and  again  in  broad  day  when  he 
was  crossing  the  Avenue  to  Bongras's.  The  sec- 
ond attempt  was  made  by  the  broker  Garner, 
whom  excitement  or  loss,  or  both,  had  driven 
crazy.  The  young  engineer  did  nothing  in  either 
case  save  to  see  to  it  that  Garner  was  sent  to  his 
friends  in  Kansas  City.  But  when,  two  nights 
later,  an  attempt  was  made  to  dynamite  the  great 
dam,  he  covered  the  bill-boards  with  warning 
posters.  Outsiders  found  within  the  Reclamation 
Service  picket-lines  after  dark  would  be  held  as 
intentional  criminals  and  dealt  with  accordingly. 

"It  begins  to  look  a  little  better,"  said  Anson 
on  the  day  in  the  third  week  when  the  army  of 
government  laborers  began  to  strip  the  final  forms 
from  the  top  of  the  great  wall  which  now  united 
the  two  mountain  shoulders  and  completely  over- 
shadowed and  dominated  the  dismantled  town. 
"If  the  Avenue  would  only  take  its  hunch  and  go, 
the  agony  would  be  over." 

But  Brouillard  was  dubious.  The  Avenue,  more 
particularly  the  lower  Avenue,  constituted  the 
dregs.  Bongras,  whom  Brouillard  had  promised 
to  indemnify,  stayed;  some  of  the  shopkeepers 
stayed  for  the  chance  of  squeezing  the  final  trad- 
ing dollar  out  of  the  government  employees;  the 
saloon-keepers   stayed   to  a  man,   and  the  dives 

327 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

were  still  running  full  blast — chiefly  now  on  the 
wages  of  the  government  force. 

"It  will  be  worse  before  it  is  better,"  was  the 
young  chief's  prediction,  and  the  foreboding  veri- 
fied itself  that  night.  Looting  of  a  more  or  less 
brazen  sort  had  been  going  on  from  the  first,  and 
by  nine  o'clock  of  the  night  of  prediction  a  loosely 
organized  mob  of  drink-maddened  terrorists  was 
drifting  from  street  to  street,  and  there  were 
violence  and  incendiarism  to  follow. 

Though  the  property  destruction  mattered  lit- 
tle, the  anarchy  it  was  breeding  had  to  be  con- 
trolled. Brouillard  and  Leshington  got  out  their 
reserve  force  and  did  what  they  could  to  restore 
some  semblance  of  order.  It  was  httle  enough; 
and  by  ten  o'clock  the  amateur  policing  of  the 
city  had  reduced  itself  to  a  double  guarding  of 
the  dam  and  the  machinery,  and  a  cordoning  of 
the  Metropole,  the  Reclamation  Service  buildings, 
and  the  Spot-Light  office.  For  Harlan,  the  dash 
of  sporting  blood  in  his  veins  asserting  itself,  still 
stayed  on  and  continued  to  issue  his  paper. 

"I  said  I  wanted  to  be  in  at  the  death,  and  for 
a  few  minutes  to-night  I  thought  I  was  going  to 
be,"  he  told  Brouillard,  when  the  engineer  had 
posted  his  guards  and  had  climbed  the  stair  to 
the  editorial  office.     Then  he  asked  a  question: 

328 


The  Terror 

"When  is  this  little  hell-on-earth  going  to  be 
finally  extinguished,  Victor?" 

Instead  of  answering,  Brouillard  put  a  ques- 
tion of  his  own:  "Did  you  know  that  Cortwright 
and  Schermerhorn  and  Judge  Williams  came  back 
this  evening,  Harlan?" 

"I  did,"  said  the  newspaper  man.  "They  are 
registered  at  the  Metropole  as  large  as  life.  And 
Miss  Genevieve  and  Lord  Falkland  and  Cort- 
wright's  ugly  duckling  of  a  son  came  with  them. 
What's  up?" 

"That  is  what  I'd  Hke  to  know.  There's  a 
bunch  of  strangers  at  the  Metropole,  too,  a  sher- 
iff's posse,  Poodles  thinks;  at  least,  there  is  a 
deputy  from  Red  Butte  with  the  crowd." 

Harlan  tilted  back  in  his  chair  and  scanned  the 
ceiling  reflectively.  "This  thing  is  getting  on 
my  nerve,  old  man.  I  wish  we  could  clean  the 
slate  and  all  go  home." 

"It  is  going  to  be  cleaned.  Notices  will  be 
posted  to-morrow  warning  everybody  that  the 
waste-gates  will  be  closed  promptly  on  the  date 
advertised." 

"When  is  it?  Things  have  been  revolving  too 
rapidly  to  let  me  remember  such  a  trivial  item  as 
a  date." 

"It  is  the  day  after  to-morrow,  at  noon." 

329 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

The  owner  of  the  Spot-Light  nodded.  "Let  her 
go,  Gallagher.  I've  got  everything  on  skids,  even 
the  presses.  j4u  revoir — or  perhaps  one  should 
say,  Au  reservoir.'' 

Fresh  shoutings  and  a  crackling  of  pistols  arose 
in  the  direction  of  the  plaza,  and  Brouillard  got 
up  and  went  to  a  window.  The  red  glow  of  other 
house  burnings  loomed  against  the  sombre  back- 
ground of  Jack's  Mountain. 

"Senseless  savages!"  he  muttered,  and  then 
went  back  to  the  editor.  "I  don't  like  this  Cort- 
wright  reappearance,  Harlan.  I  wish  I  knew 
what  it  means." 

"Let's  see,"  said  the  newsman  thoughtfully; 
"what  is  there  worth  taking  that  they  didn't  take 
in  the  sauve  qui  pent?  By  Jove — say!  Did  old 
David  Massingale  get  out  of  J.  Wesley's  clutches 
before  the  lightning  struck?" 

"I  wish  I  could  say  'Yes',  and  be  sure  of  it," 
was  the  sober  reply.  "You  knew  about  the 
thieving  stock  deal,  or  what  you  didn't  know  I 
told  you.  Well,  I  had  Massingale,  as  president, 
call  a  meeting  of  directors — which  never  met. 
Afterward,  acting  under  legal  advice,  he  went  on 
working  the  mine,  and  he's  been  working  it  ever 
since,  shipping  a  good  bit  of  ore  now  and  then, 
when   he   could   squeeze   it   in   between   the   get- 

330 


The  Terror 

away  trains.  Of  course,  there  is  bound  to  be  a 
future  of  some  sort;  but  that  is  the  present  con- 
dition of  affairs." 

"How  about  those  notes  in  the  bank?  Wasn't 
Massingale  personally  involved  in  some  way?" 

Brouillard  bounded  out  of  his  chair  as  if  the 
question  had  been  a  point-blank  pistol-shot. 

"Great  Heavens!"  he  exclaimed.  "To-day's 
the  day!  In  the  hustle  I  had  forgotten  it,  and 
I'll  bet  old  David  has — if  he  hasn't  simply  ig- 
nored it.  That  accounts  for  the  reunion  at  the 
Metropole!" 

"Don't  worry,"  said  Harlan  easily.  "The 
bank  has  gone,  vanished,  shut  up  shop.  At  the 
end  of  the  ends,  I  suppose,  they  can  make  David 
pay;  but  they  can't  very  well  cinch  him  for  not 
meeting  his  notes  on  the  dot." 

"Massingale  doesn't  really  owe  them  anything 
that  he  can't  pay,"  Brouillard  asserted.  "By 
wiring  and  writing  and  digging  up  figures,  we 
found  that  the  capitalizing  stockholders,  other- 
wise J.  Wesley  Cortwright,  and  possibly  Schermer- 
horn,  have  actually  invested  fifty-two  thousand 
dollars,  or,  rather,  that  amount  of  Massingale's 
loan  has  been  expended  in  equipment  and  pay- 
rolls. Three  weeks  ago  the  old  man  got  the 
smelter  superintendent  over  here  from  Red  Butte, 

331 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

and  arranged  for  an  advance  of  fifty-two  thou- 
sand dollars  on  the  ore  in  stock,  the  money  to  be 
paid  when  the  first  train  of  ore-cars  should  be  on 
the  way  in.  It  was  paid  promptly  in  New  York 
exchange,  and  Massingale  indorsed  the  draft 
over  to  me  to  be  used  in  the  directors'  meeting, 
which  was  never  held." 

"Well?"  said  the  editor. 

Brouillard  took  a  pacing  turn  up  the  long, 
narrow  room,  and  when  he  came  back  he  said: 
"I  guess  I'm  only  half  reformed,  after  all,  Har- 
lan. I'd  give  a  year  or  so  out  of  my  natural  life 
if  I  had  a  grip  on  Cortwright  that  would  enable 
me  to  go  across  to  Bongras's  and  choke  a  little 
justice  out  of  him." 

"Go  over  and  flash  Massingale's  fifty-two  thou- 
sand dollars  at  'em.  They'll  turn  loose.  I'll  bet 
a  yellow  cur  worth  fifteen  cents  that  they're  wish- 
ing there  was  a  train  out  of  this  little  section  of 
Sheol  right  now.     Hear  that!" 

The  crash  of  an  explosion  rattled  the  windows, 
and  the  red  loom  on  the  Jack's  Mountain  side  of 
the  town  leaped  up  and  became  a  momentary 
glare.  The  fell  spirit  of  destruction,  of  object- 
less wreck  and  ruin,  was  abroad,  and  Brouillard 
turned  to  the  stairway  door. 

"I'll  have  to  be  making  the  rounds  again,"  he 

332 


The  Terror 

said.  **The  Greeks  and  Italians  are  too  excitable 
to  stand  much  of  this.  Take  care  of  yourself; 
I'll  leave  Grif  and  a  dozen  of  the  trusties  to  look 
after  the  shop." 

When  he  reached  the  sidewalk  the  upper  Avenue 
was  practically  deserted.  But  in  the  eastern  resi- 
dence district,  and  well  around  to  the  north,  new 
storm-centres  were  marked  by  the  increasing 
number  of  fires.  Brouillard  stopped  and  faced 
toward  the  distant  and  invisible  Timanyonis.  A 
chill  autumn  breeze  was  sweeping  down  from  the 
heights  and  the  blockading  wall  of  the  great  dam 
turned  it  into  eddies  and  dust-pillared  whirls 
dancing  in  the  empty  street. 

Young  Griffith  sauntered  up  with  his  Winches- 
ter in  the  hollow  of  his  arm. 

"Anything  new?"  he  asked. 

"No,"  said  Brouillard.  *'I  was  just  thinking 
that  a  little  wind  would  go  a  long  way  to-night, 
with  these  crazy  house-burners  loose  on  the  town." 
Then  he  turned  and  walked  rapidly  to  the  gov- 
ernment headquarters,  passed  the  sentry  at  the 
door  of  the  mapping  room;  and  out  of  the  fire- 
proof vault  where  the  drawings  and  blue-print 
duplicates  were  kept  took  a  small  tin  despatch- 
box. 

He  had  opened  the  box  and  had  transferred  a 

333 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

slip  of  paper  from  it  to  the  leather-covered  pocket 
field  book  which  served  him  for  a  wallet,  when 
there  was  a  stir  at  the  door  and  Castner  hurried 
in,  looking  less  the  clergyman  than  the  hard- 
working peace-officer. 

"More  bedlam,"  he  announced.  "I  want 
Gassman  or  Handley  and  twenty  or  thirty  good 
men.  The  mob  has  gone  from  wrecking  and 
burning  to  murdering.  'Pegleg'  John  was  beaten 
to  death  in  front  of  his  saloon  a  few  minutes  ago. 
It  is  working  this  way.  There  were  three  fires  in 
the  plaza  as  I  came  through." 

"See  Grislow  at  the  commissary  and  tell  him 
I  sent  you,"  said  the  chief.  "I'd  go  with  you, 
but  I'm  due  at  the  Metropole." 

"Good.  Then  Miss  Amy  got  word  to  you?  I 
was  just  about  to  deliver  her  message." 

"Miss  Massingale?  Where  is  she,  and  what 
was  the  message?"  demanded  Brouillard. 

"Then  you  haven't  heard?  The  'Little  Susan' 
is  in  the  hands  of  a  sheriff's  posse,  and  David 
Massingale  is  under  arrest  on  some  trumped-up 
charge — selling  ore  for  his  individual  account,  or 
something  of  that  sort.  Miss  Amy  didn't  go  into 
particulars,  but  she  told  me  that  she  had  heard 
the  sheriff  say  it  was  a  penitentiary  offence." 

"But  where  is  she  now?"  stormed  Brouillard. 

334 


The  Terror 

"Over  at  the  hotel.  I  supposed  you  knew;  you 
said  you  were  going  there." 

Brouillard  snatched  up  the  despatch-box  and 
flung  it  into  the  fire-proof.  While  he  was  locking 
the  door  Castner  went  in  search  of  Grislow,  and 
when  Brouillard  faced  about,  another  man  stood 
in  the  missionary's  place  by  the  mapping  table. 
It  was  Mr.  J.  Wesley  Cortwright. 

The  gray-faced  promoter  had  lost  something  of 
his  old-time  jaunty  assurance,  and  he  was  evi- 
dently well  shaken  and  unnerved  by  the  sights 
and  sounds  of  the  night  of  terror.  The  sandy- 
gray  eyes  advertised  it  as  well  as  the  fat  hands, 
which  would  not  keep  still. 

"I  didn't  think  I'd  have  to  ask  a  favor  of  you 
again,  Brouillard,  but  needs  must  when  the  devil 
drives,"  he  began,  with  an  attempted  assumption 
of  the  former  manner.  "We  didn't  know — the 
newspapers  didn't  tell  us  anything  about  this 
frightful  state  of  affairs,  and " 

Brouillard  had  suddenly  lost  his  desire  to 
hurry. 

"Sit  down,  Mr.  Cortwright,"  he  said.  "I  was 
just  coming  over  to  see  you — to  congratulate  you 
and  Mr.  Schermerhorn  on  your  return  to  Mir- 
apolis.  We  have  certainly  missed  the  mayor,  not 
to  mention  the  president  of  the  common  council." 

335 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

"Of  course — yes,"  was  the  hurried  rejoinder. 
"But  that's  all  over.  You  said  you'd  get  us,  and 
you  did.  I  don't  bear  malice.  If  you  had  given 
me  one  more  day  I'd  have  got  you;  the  stuff  that 
would  have  broken  your  neck  with  the  Washing- 
ton people  was  all  written  and  ready  to  put  on 
the  wires.  But  that's  past  and  gone,  and  the 
next  thing  is  something  else.  There  is  a  lot  of 
money  and  securities  locked  up  in  the  Niquoia 
Bank  vault.  We've  come  to  clean  up,  and  we 
brought  a  few  peace  officers  along  from  Red 
Butte  for  a  guard.  The  miserable  scoundrels  are 
scared  stiff;  they  won't  stir  out  of  the  hotel. 
Bongras  tells  me  you've  got  your  force  organized 
and  armed — can't  you  lend  us  fifty  or  a  hundred 
huskies  to  keep  the  mob  off  while  we  open  that 
bank  vault?" 

Brouillard's  black  eyes  snapped,  and  the  blood 
danced  in  his  veins.  The  opportunity  for  which 
he  would  have  bartered  Ormus  treasure  had  come 
to  him — was  begging  him  to  use  it. 

"I  certainly  can,"  he  admitted,  answering  the 
eager  question  and  emphasizing  the  potentiality. 

"But  will  you?  that's  the  point.  We'll  make 
it  worth  your  while.  For  God's  sake,  don't  say 
no,  Brouillard!  There's  pretty  well  up  to  a  mil- 
lion in  that  vault,  counting  odds  and  ends  and 

336 


The  Terror 

left-overs.  Schermerhorn  oughtn't  to  have  left 
it.  I  thought  he  had  sense  enough  to  stay  and 
see  it  taken  care  of.     But  now " 

"But  now  the  mob  is  very  likely  to  wreck  the 
building  and  dynamite  the  vault,  you  were  going 
to  say.  I  think  it  is  more  than  likely,  Mr.  Cort- 
wright,  and  I  wonder  that  it  hasn't  been  done 
before  this.  It  would  have  been  done  if  the  riot- 
ers had  had  any  idea  that  you'd  left  anything 
worth  taking.  And  it  would  probably  wreck  you 
and  Mr.  Schermerhorn  if  it  should  get  hold  of 
you;  you've  both  been  burned  in  effigy  half  a 
dozen  times  since  you  ran  away." 

"Oh,  good  Lord!"  shuddered  the  magnate. 
"Make  it  two  hundred  of  your  men,  and  let's 
hurry.  You  won't  turn  us  down  on  this,  Brouil- 
lardr" 

"No.  It  is  no  part  of  our  duty  to  go  and  keep 
the  mob  off  while  you  save  your  stealings,  but 
we'll  do  it.  And  from  the  noise  they  are  making 
down  that  way,  I  think  you  are  wise  in  suggesting 
haste.  But  first  there  is  a  question  of  com- 
mon justice  to  be  settled.  An  hour  ago,  or 
such  a  matter,  you  sent  a  part  of  your  sheriff's 
posse  up  to  seize  the  'Little  Susan'  and  to  arrest 
David  Massingale " 

"It's — it's     a     lie!"     stammered     Cortwright. 

337 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

*' Somebody  has  been  trying  to  backcap  me  to 
you! 

Brouillard  looked  up,  frowning. 

"You  are  a  good  bit  older  man  than  I  am, 
Mr.  Cortwright,  and  I  sha'n't  punch  your  head. 
But  you'll  know  why  I  ought  to  when  I  tell  you 
that  my  informant  is  Miss  Amy  Massingale. 
What  have  you  done  with  old  David?" 

The  man  who  had  lost  his  knack  of  bluffing 
came  down  and  stayed  down. 

"He — he's  over  at  the  hotel,"  he  stammered. 

"Under  guard.?" 

"Well— y-yes." 

Brouillard  pointed  to  the  telephone  on  the  wall. 

"Go  and  call  up  your  crowd  and  get  it  here. 
Tell  Judge  Williams  to  bring  the  stock  he  is  hold- 
ing, and  Schermerhorn  to  bring  the  Massingale 
notes,  and  your  man  Jackson  to  bring  the  stock- 
book.  We'll  have  that  directors'  meeting  that 
was  called,  and  wasn't  held,  three  weeks  ago." 

"Oh,  good  Heavens!"  protested  the  millionaire, 
"put  it  off — for  God's  sake,  put  it  off!  It  will 
be  wasting  time  that  may  be  worth  a  thousand 
dollars  a  minute!" 

"You  are  wasting  some  of  the  thousand-dollar 
minutes  right  now,"  was  the  cool  reply,  and  the 
engineer  turned  to  his  desk  and  squared  himself 

338 


The  Terror 

as  if  he  were  going  to  work  on  a  bunch  of  fore- 
men's reports. 

It  was  a  crude  little  expedient,  but  it  sufficed. 
Cortwright  tramped  to  the  'phone  and  cursed 
and  swore  at  it  until  he  had  his  man  at  the  other 
end  of  the  wire.  The  man  was  the  lawyer,  as  it 
appeared,  and  Cortwright  abused  him  spitefully. 

"You've  balled  it — balled  it  beautifully!"  he 
shouted.  "Come  over  here  to  Brouillard's  office 
and  bring  Schermerhorn  and  the  stock  and  the 
notes  and  Jackson  and  the  secretary's  books  and 
Massingale  and  your  infernal  self!  Get  a  move, 
and  get  it  quick!  We  stand  to  lose  the  whole 
loaf  because  3^ou  had  to  butt  in  and  sweep  up 
the  crumbs  first!" 

When  the  procession  arrived,  as  it  did  in  an 
incredibly  short  time,  Brouillard  laid  down  the 
law. 

"We  don't  need  these,"  he  said  curtly,  indicat- 
ing the  two  deputies  who  came  to  bring  David 
Massingale.  And  when  they  were  gone:  "Now, 
gentlemen,  get  to  work  and  do  business,  and  the 
less  time  you  waste  the  better  chance  there  will 
be  for  your  bank  salvage.  Three  requirements  I 
make:  you  will  turn  over  the  stock,  putting  Mr. 
Massingale  in  possession  of  his  mine,  without  en- 
cumbrance;   you   will   cancel    and   surrender   his 

339 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

notes  to  the  bank;  and  you  will  give  him  a  docu- 
ment, signed  by  all  of  you,  acknowledging  the 
payment  in  full  of  all  claims,  past  or  pending. 
While  you  are  straightening  things  out,  I'll  ring 
up  the  yards  and  rally  your  guard." 

Cortwright  turned  on  the  lawyer.  "You  hear 
what  Brouillard  says;   fix  it,  and  do  it  suddenly." 

It  was  done  almost  before  Brouillard  had  made 
Leshington,  in  charge  at  the  yards,  understand 
what  was  wanted. 

"Now  a  note  to  your  man  at  the  mine  to  make 
him  let  go  without  putting  us  to  the  trouble  of 
throwing  him  over  the  dump,"  said  the  engineer, 
when  he  had  looked  over  the  stock  transfers,  ex- 
amined the  cancelled  notes,  and  read  and  wit- 
nessed the  signatures  on  the  receipt  in  full. 

Cortwright  nodded  to  the  lawyer,  and  when 
Williams  began  to  write  again  the  king  of  the 
promoters  turned  upon  Brouillard  with  a  savage 
sneer. 

"Once  more  you've  had  your  price,"  he  snarled 
bitterly.  "You  and  the  old  man  have  bilked  us 
out  of  what  we  spent  on  the  mine.  But  we'll 
call  it  an  even  break  if  you'll  hurry  that  gang  of 
huskies." 

"We'll  call  it  an  even  break  when  it  is  one," 
retorted   Brouillard;   and   after  he   had   gathered 

340 


The  Terror 

up  the  papers  he  took  the  New  York  check  from 
his  pocketbook,  indorsed  it,  and  handed  it  to 
Cortwright.  "That  is  what  was  spent  out  of  the 
hundred  thousand  dollars  you  had  Mr.  Massin- 
gale  charged  with,  as  nearly  as  we  can  ascertain. 
Take  it  and  take  care  of  it;    it's  real  money." 

He  had  turned  again  to  the  telephone  to  hurry 
Leshington,  had  rung  the  call,  and  was  chuckling 
grimly  over  the  collapse  of  the  four  men  at  the 
end  of  the  mapping  table  as  they  fingered  the 
slip  of  money  paper.  Suddenly  it  was  borne  in 
upon  him  that  there  was  trouble  of  some  sort  at 
the  door — there  were  curses,  a  blow,  a  mad  rush; 
then.  ...  It  was  Stephen  Massingale  who  had 
fought  his  way  past  the  door-guarding  sentry 
and  stood  blinking  at  the  group  at  the  far  end  of 
the  mapping  board. 

"You're  the  houn'  dog  I'm  lookin'  for!"  he 
raged,  singling  out  Cortwright  when  the  dazzle 
of  the  electrics  permitted  him  to  see.  "You'll 
rob  an  old  man  first,  and  then  call  him  a  thief 
and  set  the  sheriff  on  him,  will  3'ou r" 

Massingale's  pistol  was  dropping  to  the  firing 
level  when  Brouillard  flung  away  the  telephone 
ear-piece  and  got  between.  Afterward  there  was 
a  crash  like  a  collision  of  worlds,  a  whirling,  danc- 
ing  medley  of  colored  lights  fading  to  gray  and 

341 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

then  to  darkness,  and  the  engineer  went  down 
with  the  avenger  of  wrongs  tightly  locked  in  his 
arms. 

After  the  period  of  darkness  had  passed  and 
Brouillard  opened  his  eyes  again  upon  the  world 
of  things  as  they  are,  he  had  a  confused  idea  that 
he  had  overslept  shamefully  and  that  the  indul- 
gence had  given  him  a  bad  headache. 

The  next  thought  was  that  the  headache  was 
responsible  for  a  set  of  singular  hallucinations. 
His  blanket  bunk  in  the  sleepinj^  shack  seemed  to 
have  transformed  itself  into  a  white  bed  with 
pillows  and  snowy  sheets,  and  the  bed  was  drawn 
up  beside  an  open  window  through  which  he 
could  look  out,  or  seem  to  look  out,  upon  a  vast 
sea  dimpling  in  the  breeze  and  reflecting  the 
sunshine  so  brightly  that  it  made  his  headache  a 
darting  agony. 

When  he  turned  his  face  to  escape  the  blind- 
ing glare  of  the  sun  on  the  sea  the  hallucinations 
became  soothingly  comforting,  not  to  say  ecstatic. 
Some  one  was  sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  bed;  a 
cool  hand  was  laid  on  his  forehead;  and  when  he 
could  again  see  straight  he  found  himself  looking 
up  into  a  pair  of  violet  eyes  in  which  the  tears 
were  trembling. 


Brouillard  got  between. 


The  Terror 

"You  are  Amy — and  this  is  that  other  world 
you  used  to  talk  about,  isn't  it?"  he  asked 
feebly. 

The  cool  hand  slipped  from  his  forehead  to  his 
hps,  as  if  to  warn  him  that  he  must  not  talk,  and 
he  went  through  the  motions  of  kissing  it.  When 
it  was  withdrawn  he  broke  the  silent  prohibition 
promptly. 

*'The  way  to  keep  me  from  talking  is  to  do  it 
all  yourself;   what  happened  to  me  last  night?" 

She  shook  her  head  sorrowfully. 

"The  'last  night'  you  mean  was  three  weeks 
ago.  Stevie  was  trying  to  shoot  Mr.  Cortwright 
in  your  office  and  you  got  between  them.  Do 
you  remember  that?" 

"Perfectly,"  he  said.  "But  it  still  seems  as 
if  it  were  only  last  night.  Where  am  I  now? — 
not  that  it  makes  any  difference,  so  long  as  I'm 
with  you." 

"You  are  at  home — our  home;  at  the  'Little 
Susan.'  Mr.  Leshington  had  the  men  carry  you 
up  here,  and  Mr.  Ford  ran  a  special  train  all  the 
way  from  Denver  with  the  doctors.  Stevie's 
bullet  struck  you  in  the  head,  and — and  we  all 
thought  you  were  going  to  die." 

"I'm  not,"  he  asserted,  in  feebly  desperate  de- 
termination.    "I'm    going    to    live    and    get    to 

343 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

work  and  earn  a  hundred  thousand  dollars,  so  I 
can  say:  'Come,  little  girl '" 

Again  the  restraining  hand  was  laid  upon  his 
lips,  and  again  he  went  through  the  motions  of 
kissing  it. 

"You  mustnt  talk!"  she  insisted.  ''You  said 
you'd  let  me."  And  when  he  made  the  sign  of 
acquiescence,  she  went  on:  "At  first  the  doctors 
wouldn't  give  us  any  hope  at  all;  they  said  you 
might  live,  but  you'd — you'd  never — never  re- 
member— never  have  your  reason  again.  But 
yesterday " 

"Please!"  he  pleaded.  "That's  more  than 
enough  about  me.  I  want  to  know  what  hap- 
pened." 

"That  night,  you  mean?  All  the  things  that 
you  had  planned  for.  Father  got  the  mine  back, 
and  Mr.  Leshington  and  the  others  got  the  riot 
quelled  after  about  half  of  the  city  was  burned." 

"But  Cortwright  and  Schermerhorn — I  prom- 
ised them " 

"Mr.  Leshington  carried  out  your  promise  and 
helped  them  get  the  money  out  of  the  bank  vault 
before  the  mob  sacked  the  Niquoia  Building  and 
dynamited  it.  But  at  the  hotel  they  were  ar- 
rested on  the  order  of  the  bank  examiner,  and 
everything    was    taken    away    from    them.     We 

344 


The  Terror 

haven't  heard  yet  what  is  going  to  be  done  with 
them." 

"And  Gomorrah?"  he  asked. 

She  sHpped  an  arm  under  his  shoulders  and 
raised  him  so  he  could  look  out  upon  the  moun- 
tain-girt sea  dimpling  under  the  morning  breeze. 

"There  is  where  it  was,"  she  said  soberly, 
"where  it  was,  and  is  not,  and  never  will  be  again, 
thank  God!  Mr.  Leshington  waited  until  every- 
body had  escaped,  and  then  he  shut  the  waste- 
way  gates." 

Brouillard  sank  back  upon  the  pillows  of  com- 
fort and  closed  his  eyes. 

"Then  it's  all  up  to  me  and  the  hundred  thou- 
sand," he  whispered.  "And  I'll  get  it  .  .  .  hon- 
estly, this  time." 

The  violet  eyes  were  smiling  when  he  looked 
into  them  again. 

"Is  she — the  one  incomparable  she — worth  it, 
Victor?" 

"Her  price  is  above  rubies,  as  I  told  you  once 
a  long  time  ago." 

"You  wouldn't  let  pride — a  false  pride — stand 
in  the  way  of  her  happiness?" 

"  I  haven't  any;  her  love  has  made  me  very  hum- 
ble and — and  good,  Amy,  dear.  Don't  laugh: 
it's  the  only  word;  I'm  just  hungering  and  thirst- 

345 


The  City  of  Numbered  Days 

ing  after  righteousness  enough  to  be  half-way 
worthy  of  her." 

"Then  I'll  tell  you  something  else  that  has 
happened.  Father  and  Stevie  have  reorganized 
the  'Little  Susan'  Mining  Company,  dividing  the 
stock  into  four  equal  parts — one  for  each  of  us. 
You  must  take  your  share,  Victor.  It  will  break 
father's  heart  if  you  don't.  He  says  you  got  it 
back  for  him  after  it  was  hopelessly  lost,  and 
that  is  true." 

He  had  closed  his  eyes  again,  and  what  he  said 
seemed  totally  irrelevant. 

"'And  after  the  man  had  climbed  the  fourth 
mountain  through  all  its  seven  stages,  he  saw  a 
bright  light,  and  it  blinded  him  so  that  he  stum- 
bled and  fell,  and  a  great  darkness  rose  up  to 
make  the  light  seem  far  beyond  his  reach.  Then 
the  light  came  near,  and  he  saw  that  it  was  Love, 
and  that  the  darkness  was  in  his  own  soul.'  .  .  . 
Kiss  me.  Amy,  girl,  and  then  go  and  tell  your 
father  that  he  is  a  simple-hearted  old  spendthrift, 
and  I  love  him.  And  if  you  could  wire  Castner, 
and  tell  him  to  bring  a  license  along " 

"0  boy — foolish  boy!"  she  said.  "Wait: 
when  you  are  well  and  strong  again.  .  .  ." 

But  she  did  not  make  him  wait  for  the  first  of 
the  askings;   and  after  a  healing  silence  had  fallen 

346 


The  Terror 

to  show  the  Heedlessness  of  speech  between  those 
who  have  come  through  darkness  into  hght,  he 
fell  asleep  again,  perhaps  to  dream  that  the 
quieting  hand  upon  his  forehead  was  the  touch 
of  Love,  angel  of  the  bright  and  shining  way, 
summoning  him  to  rise  up  and  go  forward  as  a 
soul  set  free  to  meet  the  dawning  day  of  fruition. 

The  End 


347 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subjea  to  immediate  recall. 

•• 

30Mar'64SW 

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T  n  oi  A    A(\^  A  <Ri                                   General  Library 
^^fii-i';1n?^7«R                              University  of  California 
(D64aslO)4/6B                                           Berkeley 

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